Peiper's Pipers
by CannonsAreBetterThanOrganGuns
Summary: A regiment of Tilea's not-so-finest Mercenaries find a job offer that promises more generous returns than usual their business. However, a freak storm delivers them to a distant land that has conflict aplenty with all the opportunity that it brings.
1. Chapter 1

**A New Contract**

* * *

Miragliano was the greatest city to have ever existed, according to it's residents, in all of Tilea and by extension, all of the old word. The former was hotly debated by other city states in Tilea, but they all agreed on the latter. After all, Tilea was the beating heart of humanity at it's finest, despite what the snooty Bretonnians and overly fanatical people of the Empire believed. No other race that ever lived in the old world was as adaptable as Humanity, and humanity excelled in conflict.

Conflict was an old comrade in arms and a jealous wife all in one in the sunny climates of the south. City states were always vying for a bigger slice of the trade coming from the far nations of Ind and Cathay, the trade from lustrian colonies and of course the dwarfs that lived in the Vaults.

Serra could see a bit of the famous Tilean rowdiness in display at a tavern she was seated in. Seated in one of the tables in the far corner, she took in everything happening in the parlour. The place was well furnished by human standards, but would have turned the nose of the homeliest woodcutter in Chrace. A large number of bare tables crowded by dozens of men laughed and cheered as two men, - An Estalian and an Imperial – exchanged blows. Of course in a brawl like this, bets would be made and coin won or lost. With a dexterity she had never thought humans could possess, coins were tossed and wagers laid on who would win. The fighters in comparison seemed positively slow in comparison. The Estalian was smaller and nimbler, while the Imperial was bigger and seemed sturdier. It was always hard to tell with humans. For all their bluster and posturing, they seemed to go down fast to the arrows of elven archers or get skewered by spear or lance when they managed to land on the coasts of Ulthuan. She turned her attention away from the impromptu entertainment of the night to the man who was seated opposite to her.

Serra was positive that the man couldn't see her. Between the voluminous cloak she was wearing and a simple spell harnessing Ulgu – the lore of shadows, the humans senses would be befuddled.

He however was not looking at her. Much like his kind, his attention was drawn by the crude spectacle of the fight. She studied her quarry for a moment. An imperial, by the looks of him. Paler than a Tilean and grey eyes made him stand out in a southern crowd. Short black hair covered his head and framed his face. A sharp nose and an aristocratic bearing marked him as nobility – or what passed for it among humans. She was reminded not so much of the men of the Empire as the knights of Bretonnia when she looked at him. Still, it was unheard of for the bretonnian nobility to fight on foot. A mishmash of clothes including a rich tunic coloured in barbaric ways made him look like a foppish noble from the Empire all the samea. This creature was a product of Tilea in the matters of warfare, preferring to fight on foot or not at all if the money wasn't good.

Even as Serra finished her observations the Estalian swung behind the Imperial and punched him in the gut. The bigger man's eyes popped out and he began to go down like a sack of potatoes. Even as the smaller adversary leapt in to gloat, his hand shot out and he landed a flailing swing on the back of the Estalian's head. That knocked the man out cold. That did it. The entire tavern erupted into an uproar. There was no clear winner. Between all the drink and the shine of the coin, men began to start fights of their own to grab as much of the betting pool as possible. Her companion laughed and turned his attention fully towards her, his smile rapidly fading as he tried to make her face out.

"Let us negotiate madame, the gold you are paying us upfront is a bit too low. I have to make it worth our while for my boys."

Serra sighed inwardly. How Human. Haggling over imaginary pieces of gold like a child haggling for sweetmeats. In the absence of the Eldest Race from the old world, the humans had acquired the dwarf lust for gold. Much like what humans did, it was a weak imitation of those that came before them. Still, she would be using the tools she could make use of.

"As I have said, you get three tenths of the loot and don't have to pay for provisions during the journey."

"Those are generous terms madame, but the thing is, we haven't fought that far north before. While we will be sailing on the ocean, we will be letting go of contracts that are closer."

"So you are saying that you are too worried about short term profits instead of the much larger dividends I am prepared to pay you? And I had thought you and your men to be good soldiers"

The man's eyes flared up at that. His nostrils flared and he made to get up before breathing sharply and speaking. Humans were so predictable.

"We are good soldiers. The finest next to Borgio's company. We have taken on Orcs, bretonnians, beastmen and the ratmen – the skaven- that plague the hinterlands of our fair land. We are however not stupid. You promise to send us on a wild chase to the north beyond lustria with lesser pay than we would get upfront from a merchant prince from Remas-" the man grimaced at that name before continuing "- and a loot policy that is not fair to us. Madame, I have 2 cannons, light and made of bronze, they do not come cheap." He held up 2 fingers as if to emphasise his point. He continued with a boastful air. "We will bring back the treasures from the temple cities of Lustria if all the lizards of the jungle were after us and lay them at your dainty feet if only you promised to give us a fair share of it."

The man absolutely believed that. Despite herself, Serra began warming up to the man's boasts. He seemed to know what he was talking about, and his flourish at the end was something of a boast. The Asur often used human porters for their forays into Lustria. Each Elven life was precious, and there were humans aplenty. She smiled at the human and made him an offer she knew he wouldn't refuse.

"Very well. We shall share the loot from the sack evenly, and I am prepared to pay you double of what you asked for AFTER your services are no longer required." She was pleased to see the man stare dumbly at her for what seemed like an eternity before he sighed and nodded. The man brought out a large scroll of parchment and signed his name on it before passing it to her. She had tickled his professional pride with the promise of more payment.

"Von Peiper's Regiment shall exceed your expectations madame, for no extra cost." He proclaimed.

Time would tell of the veracity of his boast.

During their negotiations the brawl had nearly turned into a riot. Someone had the bright idea of beating up the barkeep and making a rush for the booze downstairs. Others followed this entrepreneur and soon enough the floor was covered with bruised bodies, barrels and booze that had been spilled. Serra was reminded of the aftermath of a battle. She got up to leave, as the pathetic scene reminded her of why she was in this squalid place. Before leaving she turned to look at the human who was gulping down his drink and stretching his hand towards her untouched cup.

"Be at the docks before dawn, we shall see how you earn your keep soon enough." The man nodded before emptying her cup in a long and uninterrupted gulp.

* * *

Erich Von Peiper hated ships. It was strange enough for a man who had grew up in the empire, where rivers were often safer than roads for travelling, and stranger still for a mercenary leader who regularly plied his trade in Tilea, Estalia and sometimes even Bretonnia. Still, he was of the firm belief that people were best served when the ground under them was solid, not roiling in turbulent waters in an oversized coffin that floated.

This infernal contraption was simply the worst of them. It heaved and rolled in the calmest of weather and made him feel happy he didn't invest in horses as part of his business expenditure. The beasts were too hard to transport over sea and tended to get eaten when supplies ran low. They were also notoriously terrible to pacify on ships. For all their stupidity, horses shared one idea with him. Travelling on boats and ships was bad. He wondered how much of that was due to his mediocre skill at riding. His father, a Knight of the Empire had tried to teach him how to ride a horse. After weeks of painful sores the man had declared Erich was as bad as a bretonnian peasant when it came to riding horses. Still, that had been a simpler time. The biggest worry Erich had then was a way to ride his horse. Now, his poor skill at riding just was about the least of Erich's worries about life. His father was still in Pfeildorf no doubt, brooding over his son and his failures.

Thinking of home brought to mind darker memories so Erich stopped thinking about the past and looked at his companions. The four of them were as bad as he was, alternately eyeing each other and the porthole. Bored out of their minds, a wager of a week's salary had been struck. The last person to puke after a full tankard of rum would walk away a decently wealthy man by mercenary standards. The tension in the room was palpable. Afraid that if they spoke they might throw up, and afraid that the silence was making them focus on the uncomfortable movement of the ship and the rum sloshing about in their bellies.

Myrmidia protect them, they were going to throw up simply due to boredom if this continued. Erich broke the silence. "So Sven, how do you like travelling in Southlander boats eh? A far cry from the terrifying longships your fathers used to terrorize all rightful men of the Empire." He emphasised this with a hearty clap on the back. It was a bit of a harsh clap, primarily a shove and an outsider may have been forgiven for thinking that Erich was trying to eliminate his competition early. The large 'Norscan' standardbearer looked at him with bloodshot eyes, making their blue stand out even more.

"I keep telling you, I was born in Salzenmund and my my mother was an honest tender at an inn on the waterfront." The man who spoke it seemed to be part of a Dietlef Sierck play, with his words completely at odds with his physical bearing. Taller than the imperial and tilean yeomen that made up the majority of Erich's mercenaries by a head, Sven made for an excellent standard bearer. Yet the man was gentle as a mouse and did not like fighting all that much. Someone had jokingly called him the most domesticated follower of Ulric in the Old World which was something of a dubious honour. The God of Winter and Wolves abhorred cowards, which probably explained why most Northerners were hot blooded in their quest for fighting just about any enemy of the empire.

"Yes, yes, we all know the story Sven, your mother was a barkeep and your father was an unlucky patron who ran out of money and had to pay in more base ways." Rudi interjected. A slim, lithe Reiklander with the air of a fox, Rudi was the piper in the company. It was his job to set the marching beat, a job that he excelled at – much to the consternation most men in Erich's company who protested that he made them march too fast. It was of course Rudi's idea to lay the wager and Erich didn't doubt that he had filled his belly with ham before suggesting it. Typical Reiklander wiles that would get him rich eventually, or killed quickly if the tables turned against the rogue.

On another Northman, that barb about his paternity would have been enough to cause a duel – if he was noble – or a brawl if he was an honest yeoman. Sven simply shrugged and continued. "Like I was saying. I tried my hand at a fishing boat once, the thing went down faster than a Marienburger looking for his coin purse. Ever since then I have kept a healthy distance from seagoing vessels, whether they be boats or cogs."

"And now you are here." Rudi picked up the conversation before Erich had a moment to interject. The man was incorrigible."Doesn't the sea make your stomach churn Sven? Manaan doesn't like us trespassing upon his domain. A little tumble and you could fall deep into the cold depths, far away from battle." He gave the table a violent shake as if to emphasise this point, hoping the quivering would be enough to make Sven lose his week's salary. The Nordlander didn't even budge, staring dimly at his cup.

A moment of awkward silence passed and then the four of them burst out laughing. Morr was a constant companion of mankind, his hand stretching over to claim the dead eventually, whether they died at sea or land. Being mercenaries, they had made peace with that axiom long ago.

The fourth companion, Phillip looked at them and clutched his sigmarite medallion. A bald and powerful man, he seemed more like a warrior than a drummer. He spoke, with a deep voice, the kind a priest would use. "Speak not of such foul tidings. I would rather be buried in the ground rather than at the bottom of the wide seas. Instead, I propose that we should rather discuss what our patroness has told us regarding our venture and Sigmar willing we can find a way to keep our heads on our shoulders with our purses considerably heavier with coin."

That was Erich's forte. He immediately sobered up and began to speak in a authoritative tone officers were fond of using. While initially a source of amusement for his company of mercenaries, that voice alone was the thing keeping them together in the midst of battle. Battles are chaotic places, and a tone of voice speaking loudly, and calmy gathered far more attention than frantic screaming. It also made Erich's stock rise among his clientele once they actually saw him in the middle of the battlefield slowly going about his business of killing their foes.

"Well, you see, we are to make a stop at Skeggi and take supplies and say hello to Sven's distant cousins and maybe find him a bride." Sven grimaced at that although it was hard to tell if it was the prospect of marriage or being related to the norscans that made him more perturbed.

"Our resupply completed, we are to take sail again and go north to the sea around the Titan Peaks. Our patroness assures us that the denizens of that place are fighting against the skaven or each other, and we shall help them by relieving them of treasures that they may hold. Once we have reaved and sacked to our fill, we are to then take the ships back to skeggi, and then on to the High Elven Harbour of Lothern. Then, our contract is complete, and we can return back to Tilea and continue our careers – or retire depending on our current financial status."

The last line was an something Erich had looked forward to earlier in his career, but was now certain was not going to happen, unless he found a hoard of dwarf treasure buried in The Vaults.

"What do we know about our patroness?" Rudi asked. Ever the practical man, he didn't like the idea of sailing to another continent to reave for large treasures when smaller treasures were already present for the taking in the old world. He lacked imagination, which in their business was a double edged sword.

"Well, for one, we know that she is a witch." Phillip clutched his medallion even harder, causing his knuckles to whiten. Erich continued, "so the idea that we can slit her throat and take all our share is probably not going to work unless Rudi wants to spend the rest of his life as a toad."

"Why would a witch want to hire some reavers to raid some forsaken coast on the other side of the world?" Phillip asked. It was a good question. Erich had a good answer, or so he hoped.

"Well you see, as powerful as she magically may be, she still needs people to actually fight. With a little bit of luck she destroys our foe with magic and we loot them and take their treasures. Besides, the war between Remas and Miragliano is over, and Pavona has been looted and gutted. I wasn't going to pay for idle hands and we still need more money so that we can retire."

"Aye, and for all we know you will give away the paychest to the first mewling child who comes across you back home." Sven's words stung Erich a little. Maybe his father was right. He wasn't cut out to be a soldier. Too awkward and too soft to face the harsh realities of life. He sighed as he said finished his briefing.

"Methinks our patroness is an Elf" Rudi mused. "Think about it. She comes to Miragliano, hires a small force of men and pays them in half a hundred coins from all over the world. I think I found an Ind ivory coin in my salary"

"Why Rudi, are you going to turn your charm on her? Maybe ask her for a special favour?" Sven retorted. "Ulric's teeth, you really want to be turned into a toad don't you?" Rudi glared angrily at a moment at the guffawing Sven before joining him in laughter. At times the two of them seemed like overgrown children in comparison to Erich and the sombre Phillip. Or maybe it was the drink getting to their heads.

"No, no, I got it all figured out. She leaves us at Lothern. Who would want to go to Elven lands unless they were an elf?"

"Except Lothern is perhaps the biggest port in the world Rudi. It would be a perfect place to hide in." Phillip spoke less often than Rudi or Sven, but what he spoke was generally sound advice to be heeded. A nearly ordained Warrior priest, the man had learned to quell arguments with a forcefully spoken point.

Yes indeed. Von Peiper's boys would have to find their own way back to the old world and given the nature of mercenary companies, they would spend most of their gold in the port itself before returning back.

Just then the ship gave a large lurch and the four of them threw up nearly together. The last thing Erich remembered before passing out was Rudi saying, "Lets call this a tie then."

* * *

 _ **Update as of 30th Jan. I corrected some minor mistakes in spelling and grammar.**_


	2. Chapter 2

**The Storm before the Calm**

* * *

Serra paced about on the deck of her ship. She had requisitioned five cogs, bretonnian merchantmen indebted to her family for their business with the Asur, who were now transporting six hundred angry and hopefully competent men on her mission. The ships were close enough that she could make out the individual sailors on all their decks, running around busily. It meant that they were close enough for her to work her more powerful spells should the need be required. Novice mages serving aboard the ships of the Phoenix King learned this technique rather quickly. Close enough for mutual support but far enough to manoeuvre if battle was joined.

They were taking a route that was a defunct trading node that skirted in rough waters. The Druchii corsairs would not trouble them, preferring to maraud in more profitable and populated routes. Most trade routes hugged the coast, moving from the protection of port to port, gathering supplies and selling their wares. This one had been unused for a thousand years, simply because it was now far more economical to go via the ports of the old world and their teeming markets of humans. The only problems they would face here were inclement weather and maybe some hungry kraken. She had handled her share of those monsters when she had served her stint as a mage, and knew how to scare them away. Even now her small fleet was protected by the grey winds of magic, and to a distant observer seem like distant clouds on the horizon.

Her cargo was insensate for the most part. Mercenaries would drink and gamble and stay away from her for the most part. Humans believed that women on a ship were harbingers of bad luck. Like every human superstition it had a small kernel of truth. Druchii ships had mages on them, just like their Asur counterparts. Of course, all Druchii magic wielders were female, and as a result, humans had taken to believing that women on a ship were bad luck. They had forgotten that the bad luck was being waylaid by a Dark elf ship in the first place. Once her mission was done, she would return to the White tower of Hoeth and confer with the loremasters and archmages therein about her hypothesis.

She kept her eyes on the clouds, her senses feeling the slightest change in the wind and summoning additional air elementals if need be. Speed was of the essence, but she kept the largest part of her might intact to protect her fleet if need be. Serra's mission was to sack the coasts of Ssildra Tor, and to rile up the Dark elves into attacking the warlike states of the humans. They would occupy the Druchii, allowing the high elves to break out from Arnheim and secure the hinterlands of the Clawed coast. This would split up the Dark elven realm and allow the high elves to destroy a large part of their debased kin between the Isthmus of Lustria and the newly secured coast. It was a more unorthodox strategy that the High Elves had devised. The safety of Ulthuan depended upon the Druchii being harried, but declining numbers of the High Elves meant that they now had to fight by guile even as they marshalled their armies.

A thin crease of worry appeared on Serra's face as she felt the approach of a maelstrom. She began casting incantations of warding, harnessing the Winds of magic into her staff and shaping it into a small and subtle spell that veered the ships together through a path that would allow them to bypass the pitfalls of the journey and reach Skeggi safely.

Even as the ships realigned, too subtly to be noticed by their captains, her magesight alerted her to a danger that the human sailors would not notice for hours. The winds of magic were coalescing into a magically charged cloud that would intersect them as they approached the coast off Skeggi. She steeled herself to face this onslaught. A bit of preparation of her body would go a long way to making the journey easier.

Her quarters aboard her ship were spacious enough. The captain had given it to her as befit her station and would had to share a bunk with his crew as was right and proper. She browsed over some spellbooks and cards that helped her to pass the time before reaching under the bed and bringing a small bottle stoppered with a rich purple liquid. The potion of Charoi fortified the body for far longer than it sapped at the mind. A few moments of haziness and she would be able to weather the magical storm with as much ease as a mild rainfall in Avelorn. Serra drank the potion and felt her mind swim and swirl. She focused as much of her power as she could on controlling the ship for the next few minutes before finally giving in to the haze.

When she came to her senses she could hear the roar of the storm almost overhead. The captain of the ship was frantically banging on her door pleading for help against the storm. Serra wondered how long she was out for as she put on her cloak and adjusted her circlet. It was important to keep up appearances in front of the humans lest their craven nature cause them to become fatalistic in times of crises.

Serra was out on the deck, a small aura protecting her against the sea spray and the rain as the sailors desperately lashed themselves on to the deck of the ship. To their credit, the humans were competent and knew what to do in a storm. They clumsily tied themselves to the railings, masts and anything else that was a part of the ship's body and wouldn't roll overboard. Maybe she had underestimated their tenacity. Or they were just following orders. She walked up to the front of the ship and planted her staff firmly in the wooden surface. The spells she would be invoking would require a focal point that she could harness the Winds of Magic and work her spell outward.

She began her incantation by calling Hoeth, the god of wisdom, and forced a magical bubble around her ship. With a power that was beyond the power of the mightiest of human sorcerers as she weaved the raw magical power coming from the freak storm into a harmonious shape. High magic was the pinnacle of magic as a force of nature. The winds of magic, working together in harmony to accomplish far more together than they could do on their own. As her ritual climaxed, Serra spread the power that had gathered in the palm of her left hand in the shape of a tiny ball outward and around the ship. A shimmering shield of blue covered the entire ship protecting it against the elements that howled all around them

Serra smiled. Even the High Loremaster would be impressed by her feat. She was channelling the winds of magic directly into the staff, using it as a conduit for the bubble that surrounded the ships. When the winds would wane, so would the bubble and then they would continue on to Skeggi. The genius of the spell was that she had nothing to do with it any more. In a way it was like a stable arcane experimental device. The worse the storm blew, the safer the ships would be. She made a mental note to write down the details of the spell she wove later on. Satisfied that she had solved the problem plaguing her in such an elegant manner, befitting of a mage in service of the Pheoenix King, Serra exhaled a tired sigh before returning to her room. She deserved a good night's rest.

* * *

Erich's sleep was broken by the sun shining in his face through the porthole. Sven, Rudi and Phillip were still lying on the floor, and seemed to be sleeping off their binge. While he wasn't feeling ready to fight, Erich's head was not ringing. That meant that he had slept off the worst of the drink and could go about his business with a clear head. He walked over to his bunk bed and fetched a fresh set of clothes to put on. He opened his chest and took stock of the oddments he had kept on top of his neatly folded clothes.. A fine Estalian rapier hanging by his bedstead, a Pistol manufactured by the engineers guild in Nuln and a small pouch of lead balls were all the possessions that were the tools of his trade.

Mercenaries were known for the wealth they carried on their body, and Erich's equipment reflected that. Dwarf shot and powder was expensive and the fact that he had enough to last for an extended campaign was a personal point of pride. His breastplate was not quite dwarf forged but it was forged from steel of the highest quality one could find in the Old World. An outrageously expensive tunic covered his body, the joints torn and sewn again to show how little he thought of such expensive wear. His tights were of sleek dark wool and linen, that contrasted neatly with the tunic he wore. Erich's hat was made of dark bearskin hat, trimmed with golden thread and accentuated by several feathers from birds in Tilea, Estalia, and Bretonnia. Gods willing, he would soon add a lustrian feather to his hat. His codpiece completed his outfit, making him look outrageously fashionable.

He looked at his reflection in the mirror and straightened his collar. Smiling despite himself, he listened to the sounds of the cog. The roar of the sea waves and the creaking wood were most in abundance, with the distant crying of seagulls. It probably meant they were close to a coast. Erich quickly left the room, taking care not to step over the vomit and remembering to take his coin purse with him. He could trust his men in the midst of battle, but not around his money. Years of campaigning had taught him that it never hurt to be careful with your expensive belongings around mercenaries.

The sky had a few sparse clouds with the sun still in the east. Gangs of sailors ran about on deck, shouting at each other in what seemed to be a mix of Estalian, Tilean and Bretonnian, with a few Reikspiel curses thrown in. The sails were being tended to and the decks were being cleaned. They seemed at home in the buckling cog. In contrast, a couple of his men were on the boat, looking confused and unsteady on their feet. A couple of them ventured to hail him while others took their turns to throw up much to the distaste of the sailors.

The cargo hold where the men had stowed themselves smelled of spirits, piss and vomit. A homely stench that reminded him of the less genteel quarters of half a dozen cities. Gingerly stepping over puddles of water and other nastier liquids, he walked to the back of the hold where the two cannons and their powder was stored. The dozen dozing bodies nearest to him were the gunners and the artillerymen who were to use the cannons to devastating effect in battles, and looked after the blackpowder supplies when the battle was done. Waking up two them, he began to inspect the ammunition and supplies that the two hungry beasts would need. Wisely enough no one thought to bring a torch close to the store of blackpowder. While the little light they had was a problem, it was a better alternative to be incinerated in an explosion.

After nearly an hour, he walked outside, satisfied that the blackpowder had not been destroyed by the sea spray. His men had double packed the crates with layers of straw and burlap, with the interior layer of wood still dry to the touch. For all their competitive economical value, Von Peiper's Pipers were not a company of incompetent soldiers. They knew to keep their pikes polished and stowed, and Erich didn't need to ask them to keep their crossbows dry. In a battle, the little things mattered far more than the glorious charges and valiant last stands. It was something that the stories of heroic lords and generals forgot to mention. People loved entertaining stories, not diaries and ledgers filled with mind numbing figures about supplies and armouries.

More of his men had come outside now, eager to stretch their legs and get away from the smell of the ship's innards. They would soon be clamouring for breakfast. Erich idly wondered how long they could eat biscuits and salted pork for breakfast. So far they had been sailing for a month straight and had consumed about half of their supplies. From what he had gathered from the captain and his first mate, they would be reaching Skeggi any day now. He set off to find the captain, a garrulous Breton from Bordelaux with a thick accent and a beard that would look at home on a dwarf's face. The man was at the helm of the ship, piloting it with wild abandon as he hurled abuses at his crew. He certainly seemed to be in high spirits. Even as Erich approached the man, a shout from the crow's nest. rang out. Instantaneously, the deck began to fill with sailors, herding Erich's men downstairs with haste. The ship began to ring with activity and began to change it's course down wind.

"Pardon me captain Tristan, I was wondering when we were going to reach Skeggi." Erich asked the man piloting the ship.

"Ah Monsieur, I am glad you asked this. We just sighted land, and should be able to reach the coast in a few hours if the weather permits."

"Ah, excellent. I would be happy to reach dry land for a little while at least."

"What, is my boat not too good enough for you?" The man's tone was playful, but it was hard to tell due to his accent.

"No, my dear captain, I am not very good on boats. But yours is the finest I have had the opportunity to travel in."

"Ah, I see." The man said in a voice that was equal parts belligerent and playful. "We should be reaching the coast by noon. Once I get our bearings we can continue on to Skeggi."

That turned the conversation to other homelier and mundane matter. Things about home and family. Things that Erich did not want to talk about. Luckily for him, the Bretonnian wanted a patient ear to listen while he spun his yarn. Apparently Tristan had wanted to be a knight once and was quickly disabused of the notion when a knight in service to Duke Alberic de Bordeleaux had thrashed him and conscripted him the Duke's trade fleet. Now had a house, wife and three squealing children in Bordelaux. The mysterious woman had insured his ship and he was sailing with a light heart. It was the first time he was transporting soldiers. Usually he used to ply his trade on the great ocean between bordelaux, Magritta, Tilea and Marienburg. He had visited Lothern on business once, and the elves he saw had been as beguiling as they were disturbing. They were largely distrustful of humans and would kill anyone who ventured beyond the human quarters of the city. From what he had been able to gather, the entire was hauntingly beautiful and disturbingly quiet. Elves were dying out and they were afraid that the humans might find out. Some even plotted to take over the city in secret. " I brought this ship by telling an elf about this. They confiscated their ship and gave it to me. Imagine, Tristan from Bordelaux, master of his own ship."

Erich made a mental note not to tell him anything about the volume of blackpowder they were transporting in his ship. Ship captains were notorious for dumping out more dangerous cargo when no one was noticing.

Even as they spoke, Erich began to make out land on the distant horizon. It was a grey shape rising out of the horizon that slowly began to get bigger. As they approached it. The sailors on the deck stopped to stare at it. It seemed that even they were over-awed at the sight of land after a distant journey. Humans were home at land, not at sea, and the seas of the old world had all sort of horrifying monsters living in them. The kind of monsters that made a brayherd seem like a flock of timid sheep in comparison. A few of the sailors began to pray to Manaan thanking him for keeping them alive. Tristan shouted something at the sailor in the crow's nest and after a few moments a simple flag began to fly over the ship.

"Monsieur, I must beg pardon but we must now prepare to move along the coast. The ships will converge presently and move in a convoy and I must make sure we do not crash into each other or run aground on the shallows."

Taking that as his cue, Erich left the captain and went to his quarters.

Rudi, Phillip and Sven had been busy. The room was a bigger mess than before and clothes were strewn all over the bunkbeds. They were sharing a repast of ham and biscuits and Erich pulled up a chair and joined them. They ate in silence for a few minutes before Phillip said. "Let us never drink rum on an empty stomach in a ship sailing on a roiling sea ever again." Everyone else murmured their assent and continued to eat.

They had nearly finished eating when Rudi asked "Hey Erich, where have you been? I haven't seen you since last night."

Erich replied, "I went to pay a nocturnal visit to your mother Rudi, but the line was so long that I only got back now." Sven guffawed at the retort while Rudi made a wry face. Phillip ignored the exchange focusing instead on finishing his meal.

"All right. I got up early and was checking on our blackpowder stores and making sure the men were all tucked in and cozy. Then I spent a couple of hours chatting with the captain and came back once we sighted land."

"Land, we sighted land? Praise Ulric!, we can get off this floating tub." Sven's relief was palpable. At times like these it was clear that whatever norscan heritage the Nordlander might have, sailing and violence were not part of it.

"Ho! what are you going to do do once we get to Skeggi? Me, I am going to walk into the nearest whorehouse and spend this week's salary" Rudi patted the contents of his wager from last night.

"You might get more than you bargained for Rudi, the foul norsemen are often mutated by the powers of the dark powers they worship" It was amusing listening to Phillip's sermonizing. The man would have been a warrior priest if his courage had not failed him at a critical juncture. As it was, he still cared for the spiritual well being of his friends, going so far as to pray for forgiveness as they worshipped heathen gods. It took some getting used to but the man cared about them in his own holier-than-thou way. Knowing Phillip it could either be a warning or a jest. It was hard to tell.

Rudi, delighted at making the generally quiet Phillip start a conversation, started to speak when Erich noticed something very peculiar. There was a disquieting buzzing around the room as if a crowd was murmuring. For a moment Erich's mind went back to Nuln and his expulsion from the college of Engineers. He held up a hand and slammed on the table. Everyone in the room stopped talking. They could hear it clearly now. A variety of noises coming from the deck. It seemed the sailors were having something of an animated conversation.

Almost unconsciously Erich's voice assumed a tone he used when commanding men in the midst of battle. "Get up and get dressed. I think something is afoot."

* * *

Serra sat in her room, terrified of what her senses were telling her. When she had gone to bed, she had sensed the wards around the ships holding, and the last thing she remembered was them getting stronger even as the storm of magic subsided. Something in her mind warned her that something very unexpected was happening but her body rebelled. She was tired. Too tired to even lift a finger and she dozed off into sleep.

She woke up by the time the sun rose. Exhausted but happy she put on her hood and started to cloak her form. She spent the next hour detailing the spell she had cast in her diary. After a good night's sleep she noted the mistakes she had made while working the spell. A few wrong words and hand inflections here and there. The spell she wove was supposed to shield the fleet from the storm, but it could do much more. If it absorbed enough power it could even survive the destruction of the world. A fascinating idea in theory. She resolved to share it with the Archmage Bellanaer and High Loremaster Teclis. They could help her by pointing out the leaps in logic that she had made.

Her notes completed, she idly began to shuffle a few cards while slowly feeling the winds of magic around her. She froze as she felt nothing. She couldn't sense the winds of magic at all. While it was known to be a side effect from drinking the potion of Charoi, she had rested and felt otherwise normal. Maybe she had drank all of the potion instead of a few drops. Serra rose and fumbled as she looked for the bottle. It was hanging on her belt and she looked at the clear crystal bottle nearly filled with the glittering purple liquid. She had barely taken a single sip. A terrifying thought arose in her mind. Had she burned out by channeling that spell? Mages were known to burn out on the rarest of occasions, where their senses would be so inundated by the winds of power that they would get overwhelmed and lose their magical affinity. To one with a gift it was a fate worse than death. No, it couldn't happen to her. She had warded herself well, and hadn't even used that powerful of a spell. She would have felt all the magic draining away from her body if that had happened.

Her staff! It would be able to tell her what had transpired. The traces of magic in it would help her understand what had happened during the storm.

She slowly walked up to the deck, flitting past the sailors using her natural agility and speed Humans were distrustful of elves, as was to be expected, and she would rather the sailors not see her. The staff was still there. She grasped it and slowly began to the work of the spell that had been cast using the device as a conduit. It had been stripped of it's magic nearly completely. The elven gem that focused power had fine hairline cracks in it but was stable structurally. She thanked Hoeth out of instinct. She could still sense a lingering sense of magic around her, feeble and almost non existent compared to the tempestuous winds of yesterday. She closed her sight to and saw the world beyond the purely physical. A moment later she was terrified. There winds of magic were beyond becalmed. They were non existent. The only thing magical around her was the staff, a few amulets she kept for those lulls in the wind of magic and...

On the far distance she felt a tug of magic. Almost instinctively her spirit rose from her body and flew beyond the ship. The amulets she had on her person would break the spell if danger came close or if something demanded her attention. As her spirit form rose higher in the sky she saw a sight that she would have dismissed as fiction if the enormity of it's realness didn't strike her. Lines of magic criss-crossed the land and the sea, moving to the north in a parody of the polar gates. Their colour was purple, but it was not the magic of death. No...It was akin to the harmonic winds that the High elves had mastered, but different still. Magic was supposed to be like the wind, the magic she beheld was like a river, slow moving and constant. Even as she admired the vast flow of magic, her talisman pulsed and she was dragged back to her body with a disconcerting speed.

Serra was startled as a Bretonnian sailor shook her. She get up with a start knocking the poor man down. He groaned and clutched his head clutched his head murmuring in Bretonnian. "Lady preserve me, where am I?" Serra replied in Eltharin, "Somewhere else." This certainly required further cataloguing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Landfall**

* * *

Erich felt the rocking motion of the boat as he approached the shore. The crossbowmen had disembarked nearly an hour ago, and even now he was sure Rodrigo would be advancing with his stealthiest men and searching for any foe – or food. The jungles of Lustria were infamous for their heat, man eating giant lizards and other dangerous horrors. For a moment he wondered if the storm had blown them northwards. The place was certainly colder than what he had read about from Marco Colombo's works and even now a cold wind would send the rowers shivering. The immediate coastline in front of them was filled with disembarking soldiers. Some of the men were erecting watch fires and pitching tents.

After a further fifteen minutes of rowing Erich felt the boat scrape over the surf and reach solid ground. Rudi jumped down from the boat and stretched his legs. The Reiklander was certainly exuberant on reaching dry land. He did a small somersault Sven got down in unsteady steps, taking care that the banner didn't fall down. Whatever his faults may be, personal cowardice was not one of the man's faults. Erich could rely on the man to keep the banner flying in the middle of a battle while Rudi would play until he was exhausted. On the field of battle these smaller things were as important as the heroic charge of knights or the duel between champions. Phillip was the last person to disembark from the ship, thanking Sigmar for guiding them safely to land. All of Von Peiper's Company had landed safely and without trouble. It was as good an omen as any on their latest venture.

The tents had been pitched and the men were beginning to bivouac when Erich walked into the command tent. It was slightly bigger in size, and the most conspicuous thing marking it was was the banner of the company planted outside. All of his sergeants were already waiting for him with a map spread out over a flat rock that served as an impromptu table.

"Good day gentlemen, I hope all your charges are safe and sound?" Erich asked the gathered men.

"Yes Herr Von Peiper, all the men are ready as they can be, and should be ready to march after a good night's sleep." Hans, the scarred sargeant who led the detachment of halberdiers replied. "We are quite surprised at our good fortune ourselves." That was splendid news. Disembarking on shore was fraught with perils. More often than not, the occupants of the boats would fidget or urge them too fast. This would generally get glares from more experienced seamen and occasionally cause the boats to capsize, sending their occupants to the watery embrace of Manaan.

"Excellent news. Has Rodrigo returned yet?"

"He left as soon as he landed, an hour or so ago, I suspect that he will be back before long." Luigi spoke out. The erstwhile resident of Pavona who led the contingent of pikemen that made the majority of Erich's outfit. The golden haired and ruddy faced Tilean harboured ambitions to lead his own mercenary band one day. Still the man was reliable enough for a mercenary, and knew how to follow orders. A good soldier and a charismatic fellow all around. Even as Erich studied the man, he replied with a toothy grin.

"Littorio, what about your charges?" Erich turned to the third man. A stocky, balding native of Tobaro who was the master archer of the company.

"The crossbows and bolts are perfectly servicable signor. Unless it rains within the hour we shall be ready to fight at a moment's notice."

"And what about the men?" It was common knowledge that Littorio was more at home tinkering with crossbows than with commanding the people who would use the weapon.

"Less so signor. They will require rest for the night before they are able to march or fight"

Erich was about to ask about something else when Sven's voice rang outside the tent. "Halt, who goes there!"

"Let him in Sven," Erich yelled, half guessing who the person was at the door. Roderigo walked in dressed in all his gear and carrying a weapon. His crossbow, a weapon of dwarf make and the envy of Littorio hung on his back. His body was covered by a long coat, similar to one Erich had, that the man used to great effect in hiding the glint of metal. He carried a sack of something that was dripping with blood.

Rodrigo saluted Erich and went ahead and sat down next to Luigi.

"Report."

"We scouted for an hour and signor, and hunted some deer when we were returning. The place ahead of us is a small wilderness with a single road going from west to east." The man's dark eyes glittered as he began warming up to his scouting report. Like all Urbane Tileans, the man had a flair for the dramatic. It would be pointless for Erich to ask him to stick to the dry facts, so he decided to humour him instead.

"I suppose that's not our lunch you have brought with you is it Rodrigo?"

"No signor, it is something far more disturbing." The man winked at no one in particular before stretching his legs and cracking his knuckles. Erich wondered if the man was going to spin a long yarn.

"We came upon paw prints, like those of a large dog, only, they were sets of two."

"Beastmen." Hans spoke and spit on the ground.

Living in the less urban parts of the empire made people fear and loathe the twisted children of chaos. Every village was a small outpost with wooden stockades and a gate, and a man at a watchtower every night. Villages that neglected to do that didn't survive for very long. On nights one could hear the baying of animals that sounded disturbingly human, and it was not unknown for foresters to be snatched away from the very eaves of the woods if they were alone or isolated.

"If only it were signor Hans." the man now had everyone's undivided attention, and he stopped to uncork his wineskin and drink a long gulp before continuing.

"Afraid that we might have a herd on our doorstep, we immediately began moving down wind and towards the encampment. We could see the campfires clearly when we saw the creatures."

Erich could have sworn that Sven and Rudi were listening intently. The tent wasn't too large and the wine had lent a certain stoutness to Rodrigo's voice.

"There was a score of them, a foul abomination of a dog walking upright like a man. It was like the ratfolk - "

"Only they were dogs, yes. Now do continue." Hans interrupted. It had taken the man some getting used to that Skaven were real and lived in the sewers and underbelly of the empire.

Rodrigo shot him a black look before continuing, " As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by Signor Hans, that we were downwind and we took our time to mark those creatures before we ambushed them. A couple of them – the bigger ones - tried to rush forwards towards the arrow fire while the rest stood there stupidly yapping at us. They attempted to defend themselves too late, and we killed the foul creatures where they stood. As I was checking their bodies, I found something so bizzare that I rushed back while my men made to follow me. I didn't stop until I reached the encampment we were setting up."

Even Luigi was getting annoyed at this slow drawl while Littorio was beginning to doze off. "Speak up, what did you see?"

"I could tell you, but I would rather have show you" Rodrigo finished and got up. With a flourish he opened his sack with all the style of a trickster setting up his final act and emptied the sack on the 'table'. Hans swore an oath and Littorio woke up with a start. Even Erich was surprised and disturbed by the contents. A large mangled head of a mongrel dog lay splattered over the map, its blood soaking in the parchment. A shot in the eye had killed it, and the bolt quivered as the shock of the fall caused it to vibrate. On closer inspection the head was much too large for a dog. The beast it had belonged to would have made the wolves of Middenland seem like stray puppies in comparison. It's face was struck in a snarl and Erich resisted the urge to poke the intact eye.

Then he saw the horrific thing Rodrigo had been talking about ever since he had returned to report his scouting mission.

Next to the head was a perfectly servicable crossbow. Nearly on instinct, Littorio lifted the weapon and sighted it before pulling the trigger. "Perfectly servicable, if rather rough." Then he noticed the entirety of the scene before he dropped it with a soft thud on the sand.

Beastmen were wild and feral creatures whose bestial rage and countless numbers were kept in check by superior tactics, discipline and technology. If they had begun to craft crossbows, then it was a macabre piece of intelligence.

Erich had to think fast and give the men orders before they started to talk. He breathed deeply and acted.

"Very well. Rodrigo, get some rest with your men. I want them up all night. Scout along the road and see if you can find some sort of habitation. Roads mean people. People mean should be a town or a village not far off from here. We can lay low there. Hans see to your Halberdiers and make sure they are ready to march and fight. Luigi, I want you to take some of your burliest men and chop down the nearest trees. We can use them to fortify ourselves further. Littorio. Get to work setting up defenses around the perimeter. Remember. No one else is to know what we just saw."

Hans spoke, his gruff voice breaking the quiet. " Shouldn't the men be aware of this threat?"

"Yes, they will know that there are some beastmen nearby which is why we are fortifying this camp. Until Rodrigo comes back we stay put here and dig in. Crossbows or not we will have the advantage of discipline and the knowledge that we are fighting _beastmen_ not _beastmen with crossbows_."

Rodrigo went ahead to pick up the head when Erich stopped him. "What are you doing?"

"Keeping a souvenir Signor, my first kill of the campaign."

"Keep the crossbow instead you dunce, it might come in handy some day."

"What do you want me to do with the head?"

"Burn it."

"And the map?"

"Burn it too."

"Signor, is burning our only map wise?"

"Well I cannot make use of it because you spilled a head full of blood over it you dolt!"

"Si Signor." And with that Erich left the tent.

Sven and Rudi were standing outside. They began to follow him, Sven holding holding the banner and Rudi ambling by. "Erich, where are we going?"

"Inspecting the cannons. I suspect we will need them soon enough."

Erich shook his head as he saw the cannons being wheeled into position. The entire camp was abuzz with activity. Most of the men were anxiously peering over the treeline as though expecting an entire herd of beastmen to charge at any moment. Perhaps it was a good idea to keep the tree line covered with the cannons.

He turned around and saw the cannons being unlimbered and dragged on to a small sandy pathway that lead away from the beach.

"You there. Swing that thing around. Point it at the tree line."

The men manning the cannon began to groan and turn the thing around in a perpendicular direction.

Erich ran throughout the camp looking for the other cannon. After running into a patrol on halberdiers making sure everything was in order, he saw the device beingIt was being moved to the same position the other cannon had been. While nominally a sound tactic – a battery firing in concentration tended to tear entire sections of the enemy line apart in open battle – it was nearly worthless in this state. The beastmen would charge and attempt to close in with them as soon as they were able meaning that enfilading fire from the cannons would tear bloody gouges in their line as their charge was broken by the halberdiers.

The camp was set up in a roughly three colums. The halberdiers were at the centre, with their heavy armour and polearms ready to blunt a charge and cut the enemy to ribbons, while the pikemen would form up in two units of two hundred men each, ready to defend the flanks if the beastmen should decide on a general attack. The crossbowmen were quartered closest to the the shore enough gaps in the line to fire through if melee had been joined.

Truth be told Erich knew that this line would not hold if the beasts pressed them too hard. They also would be fighting uphill. Still given the choices he had been given, Erich knew that this one offered the largest chance of survival. Beastmen broke easily, and unless they carried their momentum the line would hold. Unbidden his hand clutched his amulet as he prayed to Myrmidia for time.

The next few hours were tense as Luigi's men slowly gathered the trees bit by bit and used them to form a makeshift stockade around their landing. The trees themselves were large and thick enough to stop a cannonball, and would hold up well against a frenzied charge. The only to attack in force was through the front, and into the killing zone of pikes, halberds, bolt and shot.

As the sun began to set Erich sighed. Exhaustion had taken it's toll. He had been running around the rapidly fortifying encampment, making sure all the men were at their positions. Even now after so many years he acted like the child who sat in his father's study recreating the most famous battles of the empire with toy soldiers. His attention to detail served him well in the confines of home, and on campaign, but here, a on the eve of battle, it stressed him and kept his men frayed and on edge. Warfare was not a game, no matter what he did, there would be unpredictable behaviour. A man might break despite being surrounded by friends, starting a rout that could turn victory into defeat. Men that were doomed might fight on to the bitter end, their desperation and valour turning the sour taste of defeat into victory. Even now his leadership was sloppy. As the watch fires sprang up, Erich staggered. He was tired. It was no good to be tired. As he heard the watch change, he began to walk towards his tent. The few soldiers returning from their watch duty nodded and smiled. They could understand staying up for hours at an end and then finding the sweet bliss of slumber. He barely laid his head on the bedroll when he found it.

Erich woke up to the sounds of Seagulls crying. For a moment he though he was back in Miragliano, and the events of the last month were a bad dream. The spartan confines of the bed disabused him of that notion. Here he was, in gods-know-where constructing a fortified encampment to keep his men busy while he awaited intelligence from his scouts. He lay awake in bed for an hour, carefully picking apart each segment of the plan and analysing it for any tactical errors he may have made.

On second thought, keeping the halberdiers up front was a bad idea. They were the heaviest troops he had and they would have been better served acting as a rearguard. The pikemen should have been deployed at the front with half of their number active at a time. In a close phalanx on an open field, they would act as an excellent picket force and raise the alarm and tie down the assault that the enemy could execute. Erich yawned and got up. He would tell the sergeants about his new arrangement and they would have most of the day ready to redeploy their troops.

As the sun climbed higher, the camp was bustling with activity. The wooden stakes now looked like a proper defensive ring that would take days to cut through with axe and hours to burn down. All the while his archers could pepper the foe with arrows. Pleased with his work he reached in his coat pocket to look for a map before remembering that the had told Rodrigo to burn it. While the map would have been useless, Erich felt almost naked without any reconnaissance reports or a map. He wondered if their patroness had a map or even the materials to make one.

She hadn't disembarked from the ship. Erich was sure of that. The cog she was on was the smallest of all the vessels, which fit with her previous actions of being a person who had little interest in being seen by her underlings.

Nevertheless, Erich needed a map to set his bearings and plan out a route so that he and his boys could start earning the keep they earn from and he didn't doubt that his patroness had one of them lying around. She was too meticulous of a planner to not come on a dangerous quest like this without some kind of intelligence.

Finding something useful to do Erich walked over to the sea shore. Some sailors were still lounging by the boats, soaking in the sun with spirits for company. Half a dozen empty bottles lay beside them, gently swaying as the sea waves moved in and moved out. Compared to the hustle and bustle of the fortified encampment, the entire scene looked almost serene.

"Gentlemen, I need to return to the ships. Is anyone here willing to offer me a ride?"

They looked at him with questioning eyes and muttered darkly to themselves. Erich pointed to the ships, half a mile out. One of the sailors said something in Bretonnian and the others laughed.

He sighed and jingled his coin purse.

The sound of metal scraping over cloth spoke in a language they could understand. In the next quarter of an hour Erich could see the biggest ship coming closer as sturdy hands rowed the boat with a discipline that was as inspiring as it was incredulous. Erich however absently clutched at his coin purse, now lighter and muttered under his breath. With nothing better to do while the boat was being rowed, he though about his current employer. The witch had taken precautions not to have her face seen. Magic users as a rule were conspicuous in their flashiness. In Nuln and Altdorf it was commonly said that a person would see a wizard far before they sensed their presence. Unbound by most laws of the empire and safe within the colleges of magic or the protection of their patrons, Wizards and witches were known to be eccentric. While Erich could dismiss the darker rumours about their deals with the dark powers as largely superstitious ideas by the smallfolk, Wizards were certainly eccentric with the more powerful ones being truly bizarre.

Take the supreme Patriarch for instance. Erich had seen the man several times at the Nuln College of Engineers. The man was a genius in when it came blackpowder refining, better techniques for purifying metal and a very sensible proponent of artillery being an important part of the imperial battlefield. At the same time Balthasar Gelt was eccentric enough to cause disquiet for as she realized that sh who interacted with him on a regular basis. His voice had been altered with sorcery to an extent that his voice sounded like liquid metal. His face was covered by a mask of gold, and if rumours were true, the man was more metal than flesh now.

The jape about Rudi being turned into a toad came back to him, and Erich couldn't keep out the undercurrent of the threat out of his head. He began climbing up the rope ladder on the side of the ship with a heart that was several times heavier than the one on the beach.

* * *

Serra was cloistered in her cabin, casting small spells and observing their effects on the small obsidian lodestone she carried, noting their reaction. Over the course of the previous day she had slowly but steadily mapped out the way spells worked in this strange place. Magic here permeated everything in a subtle way that was stable and practically harmless way that contrasted with nearly everything she had been taught. She didn't need to tether herself while casting even the most basic of spells. The lodestone told her that magic here was far more easily manipulated. A wizard like Teclis of Belannaer would work the most potent of sorceries without even thinking. Her journal was nearly full from her notes in how magic here would so so easy to do. The elements themselves seemed almost benign in comparison to the water and wind elementals she enscorcelled to do her bidding while sailing ships. Magic in the air was like moisture on the cliffs of Cothique, ubiquitous and permeating the very surroundings in the world.

Not for the first time she cursed that she wasn't in the library of Hoeth. She recalled reading about ice elementals in Kislev and coalescent pools of magic in Araby that provided small and stable reservoirs from which to draw magic from. Humans that lived there had access to magic that was unique in the Old world because they didn't need to shackle themselves to deal with sudden squalls or dipping winds. Here, she could work the most complicated of spells, shaping them with her will alone instead of carefully worded incantations wards and counter spells. Given enough time, she might even approach the might of the gods themselves.

She was brought out of her reverie by a soft knock on her door. Probably some stupid sailor who wanted to get a glimpse of her. Humans were beguiled by elves and they saw in the eldest race perfection that they could never themselves accomplish. If humans were a meat cleaver, then the Asur were a finely crafted scalpel. Both had their uses, but only one would be the more exquisite item of renown. Unlike the high loremaster or the Phoenix King who had something of a grudging admiration for humans, Serra, like most of her kind thought the Mon'keigh to be lesser beasts to be used and discarded. Still it was the noble hearted nature of the Asur that had allowed the humans to flourish in the last five hundred years the two races had interacted with each other. The dullest Elven mage would cast spells that the most wizened of human mages could only dream of. Perfection in all it's forms was a part of the Elven identity, something humans could never understand or hope to accomplish. Feeling satisfied with her work, Serra dispelled her spells of obfuscation and shadows and went to open the door. The magic in this place sure was making her giddy, and perhaps less cautionary than she could be.

"So you are an elf. Interesting."

The man at the door was the leader of the mercenaries she had hired. The last she had seen him, the man was half drunk and trying to haggle for his services like a fishwife. Serra had justifiably formed a low opinion of him. Humans were half drunk and half cowardly creatures, with simple thoughts and desires. It was better to manipulate them than to talk to them of the enormity of the tasks their minds could not comprehend. The man standing in front of her door seemed like a different species of creature than the half drunk she had paid for.

He had shaved his beard and wore more practical gear. His cropped dark hair was covered by a hat that humans of the Old world were fond of using. His clothes were covered by a large dark overcoat that hid most of his clothing. The half light of her cabin reflected off the gold embroidery of his hat and covered most of his face in a shadow. The only thing that glittered on his body was the breastplate he wore under his overcoat, his hat and his hard grey eyes.

It took Serra less than a moment to notice and categorise everything the man wore and his demeanour. Without missing a beat she looked at him straight in the eyes and replied. "Yes, you need something?"

It was as much of a genuine question as a attempt at putting him in his place. It didn't matter if the human knew that Serra was an elf.

"I was wondering if you have any maps." The man's eyes drank her in, taking in her flowing amber locks, the shape of her face and her neckline before continuing to look her in the eyes.

"Yes, several. I have sea charts of all the trade routes that are present in this corner of the world and the places where the Arcane winds pool and coalesce, what times they blow strongly and when they are at their weakest." The last part was a lie. The winds of magic were essentially unpredictable. Only the gods would know when they would wax and wane. The most wizards could do was to sense it. The most powerful of mages could see them blow from much farther away and plan accordingly, but by their very nature, they were random. In contrast, magic here was stable. Serra wondered if that would be a good synopsis of the nature of magic in this strange land. She resolved to write this down in her notes.

"I am looking for more _inland_ maps, things that mention more mundane things like geography, topography and habitation." The human was determined to match what little wits he had with her, and chose his words carefully. Or perhaps humans were just that slow. Serra's fascination with his tedious transformation had run it's course and the human was quickly beginning to bore her.

"No, I am afraid I do not have such mundane maps, especially of places like these. It matters little to me. Was there anything else?" Certain that the man wouldn't have the tact to continue this conversation, she began to close her door.

"Places like these." The man was incorrigible. "I suppose her ladyship would know what _these_ places are. After all, don't the most mundane of Elven travels dwarf the most bold of human voyages in terms of both scale and attention to detail?" His voice had taken a slight tone of irony, as if he was talking about an anecdote in front of an audience. He smiled slightly as he finished the sentence.

While the factoid he espoused was true, the way he said it made Serra infuriated. She looked at him straight in his eyes, pools of blue staring into his grey irises. "That matters not. I do not have the maps of this place that would interest you and your pedestrian tastes in any way whatsoever, and I doubt you will find much of what you seek in the maps that I do have of this place."

A soft splash broke the water's stillness. Her ears caught on to the sound and twitched ever so slightly. It was probably someone tossing something into the water.

"So tell me this, your ladyship. What is this place? From what I have read of Skeggi, it seemed to be a rather warmer place, fitting for the dress you are wearing now, rather than the chill wind that makes me bring out my cloak, scarcely a mile from yonder shore." He cast an appreciative eye over her body as he finished. Standing in the full light of the doorway, Serra's form was clearly visible through the light nightgown she wore. Truly humans were little more than apes who had learned to speak.

Even so,she had to admit he man was nothing but persistent. He had vaguely begun to figure out what Serra knew for a while. Gods alone knew where they were, a wonderful place where magic pooled like liquid water and spells would be casted with as much ease as breathing.

"Why would you want to know? Are you planning on renegotiating our contract?" A direct question in response to the question he asked. Her voice was slightly miffed as she said that. The man had managed to win this sally.

"No, no, Myrmidia's blessings no. I just want to know where we are so that we can start earning our keep." A bit too earnest for Serra. She was sure the man was mocking her now. If she knew where they were, she would have told him so that he could take his odious presence away from her.

Another splash, and what seemed like the sound of wet flippers assailed her ears. Some lucky sailor had caught a fish. Maybe the human would join his compatriots and eat the fish instead of bothering her.

"I will let you know when you need to know it. Until then, I must bid farewell."

She had nearly closed the door when she heard the cry of alarm ending in a scream. Then another splash. She had barely processed that sound when a series of cries rent the air. They sounded like a drowning elf screaming while his lungs filled with water. Dozens answered. If words could describe such a wet sound it would have been "Mrgllgrgllrllr"

Her hired mercenary quickly turned about and pulled out his sword in his right hand, and a blackpowder pistol in the other.

"Halt, who goes there." The tone of the voice was perhaps the thing that surprised Serra in that instant. It was a voice that was born to command. She had seen Prince Tyrion turn entire battles wearing the Armour of Aenerion, his awesome physical presence and his sheer voice. The human's tone was a fascimile of that tone that the prince used, every cadence and lilt short and clipped. It was a voice made for commanding others on the battlefield and off it.

Then her thoughts vanished as she beheld the creatures clambering over the ship. At first glance they were like large fishes, if fishes could have hands. Their scaly bodies glistened with sea water and their feet were webbed flippers that made that wet sound as they found purchase on the wooden deck of the ship. Even as she watched one sailor was attacked by at least a half dozen of those creatures and went down screaming, his body hacked to bits by crude cleavers and swords.

A large bang ran out, and one of the creatures fell flat on it's body, torn to shreds by a straight shot. The acrid smell of blackpowder added to the surreal atmosphere of the scene.

The fish men clambered aboard the ship with a terrifying speed that seemed at odds with their gait. The few bretonnian sailors who hadn't been surprised dropped their tools and ran into the hold screaming alarms and praying to their gods to save them. Apart from Serra, the only person on the deck who was not out of their wits was the Mercenary Leader. The man had reloaded his pistol and shot at another creature. Like humans their weapons were loud and boorish and the loud crack attracted the attention of their watery adversaries. Even as he crouched into a fighting stance with his sword, at least a dozen of the creatures began to run at him, screaming their horrible cries that sounded like a fish gargling.

No matter how skilled the human was, he would be mobbed and cut down by the creatures. She opened her door wide and pulled him back into her cabin, saving his life.

The man blinked twice taking in his surroundings before he nodded at her. "I will take the door. Can you attack them with magic?" It was both a question and a command. At any other time she would have cursed him – both with spell and with harsh words – but here the man was right. She quickly ran to her staff and put on her circlet. Then she began to look for the potion of Charoi and her talismans and her waystones. Meanwhile the human busied himself by stabbing at the clawing shapes through the windows.

Serra didn't know how long it took her to find all her items but the man held the door. To his credit, the man focused on holding the door instead of sarcastically asking her to hurry up. It seemed to be a good thing that human minds weren't too capable of lateral thinking. All ready, she channeled a small fireball with her staff, calling the winds of fire to burn down those assailed her. On the verge of unleashing her spell, she shouted. "Move away from the door."

It was a close thing. Given the strange nature of magic in this place, her spell was far more powerful than she had expected. The crystal on her staff had channelled enough magic to glow a fiery orange, and the fireball took down the entire door before blazing through the ranks of the fish creatures and striking the mast. There it exploded, and the centre of the ship caught fire. The fish creatures began to run away terrified from the burning wreck and Serra stared dumbfounded at the cataclysm she had wrought with the simplest of battle spells.

"Come on, to the boats!" The man's voice was firm enough to brook no argument, and she gathered herself and began to follow the man. Even now she could hear the cries of the sailors from the other ships lost amidst the gurgling yell of the fish men. It was spine chilling sound. Another group of the fish creatures began to clamber towards them. Clumsy as they were, the man dodged them with ease before skewering the biggest of them with his sword. Their leader dead, the rest of them fled from the duo.

"Hey you on the boats, over here!" The party responded by throwing up ladders on the side of the ship. He pointed at the small craft with a few terrified sailors on board, their faces orange in the glow of the inferno Serra had wrought. "You go first."

Serra frowned at the proposition. The human would take too long to clamber down the ladder and alone he would be no match for the hordes of fish creatures that were now beginning to overrun the flaming cog. "No, you go first. I will hold them off."

The man looked at her squarely in the eye. In the light of the fire, he seemed transformed. Serra noticed for the fist time that the man had a cleft chin that stood out darkly in his pale face. He spoke, his tone conversational again. "If you die, I do not get paid." She replied, "If you die, I don't pay you." The man's face broke into a grin and he swung himself over the side of the ship. "Good luck" He said, and he was gone.

Serra surveyed the rapidly burning ship. At least two score of those fish creatures were running towards her from the parts of the ship that were not burning. She reached into her mind and formed a small blast of wind. Amplified by her conduit, the small blast became a howling gale emanating from the staff. The wind knocked over the fish creatures, with the closest ones being turned to jelly as their bodies were pulped by the shockwave of the moving wind. The wind fanned the flames and the rest of the ship began to catch fire at a speed that could be only described as blazing. Her mind was quicker, and even without reacting she formed a shield of magic that would protect her from the elements that were in disarray around her.

* * *

Erich watched as the elf mage stood on the railing, turning the entire ship into a flaming wreck without speaking a single word. He had seen wizards and witches at work on the field of battle, but he didn't doubt that none them would have a fraction of the elegance the elf had as she stood on the railing surveying her handiwork. Satisfied at her handiwork, she jumped backwards with the effortless grace of a master troubadour and curled into a ball while falling, before landing right beside him with a flourish. Trust an elf to put on a show. The entire performance was surreal. Erich heard himself say, "Very impressive." The tone he had put on was conversational which contrasted perfectly with the awesome display of power he had just witnessed.

The elf turned around and said something in bretonnian. The terrified sailors started to row back towards the camp with all haste they could muster.

Erich noticed that the elf was wearing nothing but the nightdress she was in, while carrying a staff and several amulets. If word got out that an elf had manipulated them, the company would either riot or desert. Being manipulated by a woman and a witch was one thing, but if the woman was an elf, his men would be at the end of their mental tether. In the orange glow of the burning ship, the elf in a nightdress seemed fragile as a wild rose in a forest. After thinking it over for a few moments Erich took off his long overcoat and dropped it in front of her.

The elf stared at him incomprehensibly for a few moments before he said. "Take it. You must be cold in your dress." She was certainly getting soaked by the sea spray. She nodded and began to put it on. It would be early morning by the time they reached the camp, and they could find more suitable clothes for her.

She seemed certainly less hostile when he had seen her earlier in the evening. Erich asked. "So, I take it there are fishmen in the waters around Skeggi?" It was a light conversation starter. The elf kept looking at the inferno she had caused before replying, "No, there are none."

"I suppose we aren't in lustria then?"

"No, you suppose right."

"What places in the world could have fish men?" It was more of an internal thought that Erich Blurted out.

"I do not think we are in our world at all." Came the elf's cryptic reply. They reached the camp in silence.


	4. Chapter 4

**The March Inland**

* * *

Serra looked at her reflection in the polished surface of the metal chest. Her circlet was covered by a simple cap of what seemed to be wool. She had taken care so that the cap and her locks would hide her tapered ears. Her nightdress was left in a pile at her feet. A simple spell or two would dry the dress and render it good as new, but humans were easily frightened by even the most meagre displays of power. She remembered how her captain had stared at her, his face a mixture of astonishment and horror at the power she commanded. Her thought's returned to the clothes she was wearing now. A not so soft tunic covered her torso, annoyingly loose against her body, leaving her neckline exposed and drawing attention towards her breasts. The tights she wore in contrast fit her perfectly. It seemed that she and the human were of the same height, but he was broader than her in the chest. Buff leather boots covered her legs, and made her look like one of the many cutthroats and merchants she had guided to the human quarter of Lothern.

Depending on who was looking, she could seem like a dashing adventuress or a whore dressed up to please her master's fancy. The dichotomy that arose from such a simple – if ill fitting change of apparel – appealed to Serra's finely honed senses of debate and discussion. Stifling a laugh she picked up the jacket that the human had given her. Checking her reflection again she gently brushed her tousled hair and blew a kiss at her almost unrecognisable reflection. The jacket completed her look. When she was staying in Lothern, Serra had always found the merchant princes who traded with humans to be annoyingly barbaric. Over the centuries, they would pick up the mannerisms and dresses of the lands they visited, and over time take to wearing foreign barbaric dresses to accentuate their travels and their trading fiefs. Looking again at her reflection, Serra wondered if they were not just playing at being barbarian kings and princes. It was certainly more entertaining than she had first thought.

While she hadn't needed the human's jacket during the boat ride, she appreciated that he had given it to her nonetheless. Perhaps he meant to show it as an act of kindness, but much more likely his people were afraid of elves. Serra knew what had happened to Finubar's diplomats who had once sought to reach their fallen kin, the Asrai who dwelt in the mystical forest of Athel loren. What had transpired between their meeting – if there ever was one – was never known. All the high elves knew was that the ambassador was brutally mobbed by angry humans upon his return from the forest. The poor diplomat had been mobbed and burned alive even as he entered human lands.

It had taken all of the Phoenix King's tact and guile to keep the incident from an open declaration of war. These humans were hardened killers, no matter their appearance, and Serra knew, magic or no magic, she could very easily be slaughtered by the armed mob she had managed to ingratiate herself into. Dressing up as a human was easy and all, but if push came to shove, Serra would show them no mercy.

The human was standing awkwardly outside the tent, drinking a bottle of rum and retching. He had allowed her some bit of privacy while she selected his clothes to wear. To his credit, his clothes seemed to be clean enough to wear. Most of the humans she had seen had either been sailors sailing for weeks while soaked with rum or marauders from the north who stank of blood and death. It would seem that the higher up human society went, the better they were at appreciating finer things. Of course, what might be simple fare for an Asur would pass as a king's feast for the humans.

She could hear the murmurs from the tents nearby. The humans were waking up, and they could see the pyromancy she had conjured up from the shore. The ship, or what remained of it still burned brightly. The flames she had summoned would not be so easily put out. They would continue to burn as long as there was something flammable put on the ship. Again her mind analysed the first spell she had cast. It was a simple fireball. Well simple might not be the right word. The magical impetus that channelled the latent winds of Ashqy would eventually burn out when the winds would eventually change. Here, the flow of magic was far more constant, meaning that the magical core of the flame would continue until they were vanquished by the elementals of water. She looked for her journal to write this hypothesis when she realised what she had done. Her journals and books had been on that ship, and in her haste she had turned them into ash. All the preliminary notes she had taken were gone. A sense of sadness pervaded her. She had forgotten what the greatest high elf mages embodied. Unlike their twisted cousins, the high elf civilisation was maintained by balance. Instead of raw power balance what what they strove for. Serra endeavoured to be more careful while wielding her magic. Even the simplest spells in this strange land were potent enough to rival the magic that Caledor Dragontamer may have attempted to save the world. This potential required nerves of Star Metal, and she would prove worthy of wielding such power. She was a mage of a white tower, on whose shoulders rested the responsibility of saving Ulthuan, and by extension, the rest of the world. Only the elves were capable of such a monumental task, and she would stay true to her teachers and the heritage she embodied on this alien land.

The human entered the tent reeking of alcohol. Again, Serra was forced to reconsider her opinion of the man she was employing. In a conversation, he was tedious and single minded, with the occasional witticism that seemed delivered accidentally. In the midst of battle, all his slovenly slothfulness vanished, and he became collected and focused to a degree she had not known was possible for humans. Yes, certain Warriors of Chaos were mighty warriors from human stock, but they had been so twisted by the ruinous powers that they were practically mutants. In a way his quiet analytical stance of combat reminded her of the Swordmasters of Hoeth. To them fighting was science and art blended into the pinnacle of elven battlefield perfection. Every blow from their massive swords would cleave lesser mortals in half, and their skill was so effective that they could shoot down projectiles aimed at them. While the human was physically incapable of doing something remotely similar, his stances mimicked their in a crude parody. She had also noticed the smaller dagger he kept on the inside of his boot as a secret weapon. It would seem the human was good at fighting and little else. She had certainly chosen a competent mercenary for her original mission.

The human tugged at his neck intently. Serra wondered if he was gasping for air or if he had drank too much. Strangely enough he seemed to be standing still for all that. She kept staring at him for what seemed like a minute before the human smacked his head against the palm of hand.

"Your collar" He spoke, a little animatedly.

"What about it?"Serra shot back an answer.

"You are ruining it, Its supposed to point outwards not straight up." He replied as if it was the most mundane piece of information.

"It is pointed outwards you foolish drunk man!" The way Serra spoke, each of the last three words delivered as though they were equally insulting.

The man walked over to her. In contrast with the previous evening, his face was full of expression this time. A mixture of real hurt at the insult, joy at her flustered anger and a bit of anger as he looked over her as a mannequin wearing a dress for sale. Serra had forgotten she was wearing his clothes.

He softly grabbed her collar and pulled. Stunned at the audacity of the man who dared to touch her person in this way, Serra could only stare at him for a moment. She began to conjure a small spark in her finger when the man retreated to a respectful distance and said, "There, much better." She turned to look at the makeshift mirror. The man had exposed her neckline somewhat which brought a bit more attention to her chest. At the same time, the collar had neatly folded upon itself, looking like a rather large frill.

Despite herself, Serra had to agree. The human may not have any concept of personal space, but he seemed to have good dress sense. The impromptu modification brought out Serra's neck beautifully.

She turned to look at him and slowly said. "I suppose it looks better now."

The man burst out laughing that. "No, it makes you look slightly more like a trollop. I did that because when you wear a breastplate, I do not want my collar to get ruffled."

There he was again. Serra's face turned a shade of scarlet as she heard the real reason why the human had lowered her collar. She began to say something but stopped as she focused on what he said about a breastplate. "Wait, what did you say?"

"I thought I was very clear. Tailors in Miragliano are expensive enough as it is and that shirt is my lucky one. Unless you can sew, I would rather the collar not get damaged." He sounded completely sincere when he said that. Serra couldn't detect the remotest sense of irony in his voice.

"No, what was that you said about a breastplate?"

"Well this is a band of soldiers. We fight. Up close more often than not. Breastplates are good. Breastplates stop you from having holes in your chest and stomach. Surely you knew that." She ignored the weak jibe in his tone. Arguing with a human ill became her.

"No, I am a Mage of the White Tower. I do not need a breastplate to defend myself from foes. Besides, the plate might ruin the delicate creases you have so artfully put all over your shirt." Despite his focus on collars, that part was true. It was a low jibe but Serra had enough of the humans low brow forays.

"Hmm, fair point. So, are you sure you do not want a breastplate? How about some chain mail at least?" He sounded haggler trying to sell her some trinket.

"No, I would rather not. The Aethyr reacts strangely to base metals unless channelling the lore of metal. Even then, it distorts around metal. There is a reason why magical implements are made of the higher metals like silver and gold, or even rarer material still, like obsidian. It is far too dangerous for a mage to be encased in armour. I would rather take my chances with my magic protecting me than to have some substandard protection that harms magic around me."

The man blinked at her

"It means, that wearing armour is bad if you are trying to cast magic."

"Oh, I see."

That brought their conversation to an abrupt end. The man coughed and stared at his shoes, eyes downcast. Suddenly Serra realised that the silence was awkward for both of them. She hated herself for doing this but she broke the rapidly forming barrier of conversational ice.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"The dress, and for being on the ship last night."

The man smiled at that, and suddenly didn't seem so odious any more.

"No, no, it would look bad if my boys found out that the person who had hired us had only a thin nightdress for clothes. Besides. Everything on the ship was all your sorcery."

"I could not have escaped if you were not there with your boat."

"I thought witches could walk on water."

"You thought wrong"

"Have you ever tried?" The man's question raised a fair point. The more subtle the spell, the more it would be attuned to a change in the winds of magic. Something like walking on water or freezing a river would not be possible anywhere in the old world but here...

"No, come to think of it, I actually have not."

She was about to reply to that when a commotion outside the tent caught her attention.

* * *

Erich turned back to look and saw the elf woman walk back to his chest and sit down on it. A very suitable location. Half hidden in the shadows, she would seem mysterious to anyone entering the tent.

"Hey Erich, Rodrigo is back." Sven's voice rang out. Erich had let the big Nordlander take a break while he drank outside. He had forgotten that the scouts would be back by now. He needed to be sober while he contemplated the next move. What he had gathered from the Elf woman had confirmed his fears. They were in uncharted territory. She didn't have any maps that were useful.

"Gather all the sargeants and have them meet me in an hour. Also, get me a pitcher of water."

"Erich, are you alright? Rudi heard you talking to someone inside."

"I was drunk and was regretting life choices. By Myrmidia, does anyone have a problem with that?"

He was answered with Sven's footsteps lumbering off to get some water. Gods, all that talking had made him far thirstier than before. He should start drinking less rum. On the other hand there was nothing else to do. He would have to have some form of definite reports about hostile forces before he gave the order to break camp. They had spent two whole days fortifying this encampment, and unless there was good reason to break camp, Erich was going to stay put until he figured something out.

The next fifteen minutes were spent drinking water and staring at the elf woman. She was pleasant enough company sometimes but right now she was sitting as still as a statue on his box. He wondered how much longer he would have to wait when Luigi, Hans and Littorio walked in. Not quite Rodrigo. The man couldn't stand to share the spotlight, even when it was a tentflap. Erich often wondered how the man coul act like a shadow on the field but was as boastful as a Bretonnian Knight Errant off it.

"Herr Peiper, it seems that one of our ships has caught fire." Hans scratched his cheek while he said that, running his fingers along the scar. As he did so, everyone turned to look at him.

Not because of the ship, but because the scratch of the scar made a queer enough sound to warrant attention. Even now, no one else in the room had gotten used to it.

"Indeed it has Herr Hans. I had taken a ride there to speak to our current employer and saw the sailors playing with fire and rum. I am not quite surprised that the ship has caught fire, Bretonnians seem to attract trouble on the seas like halflings out of the moot." They didn't need to know any more about the fish men. Two days ago Erich would have dismissed them as being too fanciful to be real, but now he knew better. Maybe Old Marius Leitdorf wasn't so mad after all.

"We were wondering how we were going to get home."

"Home? Home! We barely made landfall and you men want to go home? What about the loot that we are to get? What about a fine adventure and enough money to retire?"

"That's very good and all Captain," Luigi interjected, "But what good is the money when we cannot all return home?"

"Fear not, for Rodrigo has the answer!" Rodrigo strode into the tent, nearly ripping the flap open with a hand on his hip the other on his sword. His fine dwarf crossbow was slung across his back as usual.

"Ah Rodrigo, we were wondering when you would grace us with your most stealthy presence and modest voice."

"El Capitan is too kind, I am but a humble scout who has crossed many perils and tribulations to bring the most vital of information to his discerning ears"

"Yes, we would all be relieved if you gave the information as well."

"As you say, so shall it be done." The man bowed with a flourish. Despite his excellent knowledge of woodcraft Erich was once more debating if it would be better for him to throttle Rodrigo in his sleep. The man could speak forever without saying anything of importance. "When we were commanded to scout out the path, we followed it west and through the wilderness. We spent hours through the brush and the harsh weather making sure the foul beastmen with their abominable devices were not near.

We found no sign of them. A quarter of a day's march from here lies a bridge, but oh, what a bridge it is."

Erich's ears perked up. The information that mattered so far was the the dog shaped beastmen were not present in any number near their camp and there was a bridge not too far away. The man took a breath before continuing.

"It's arch is made of stone, and stone are it'se railings, while iron struts rivet wooden planks in place. If only the bridges in Miragliano were so clean Signor, there would be no doubt that our fair city is the best in all the world."

A bridge? And kept in well repair too. It meant that it was an important trade – or military – route. It would certainly be inhabited. This close to the shore there was also a good chance that the place might be a port. Erich's brain buzzed with possibilities for a moment before he brought his attention back to what Rodrigo was saying. Luckily he did not miss anything important.

"...and so we said farewell to that fair piece of engineering that would have brought a tear to the great inventor's eye. We continued our journey in such silence that we doubted that even an elf or a beastman would have heard us. Ranald was certainly with us as we uncovered far more."

The man was building up to the crux of his argument. Best to shut up and let him finish it. Littorio was glassy eyed and dozing, Hans was scratching his scar, much to Luigi's discomfort. It seemed that Erich was the only man listening.

"We found well tended farms full of produce, begging to be picked up. You must forgive us Signor, we plucked a few fruits and ate them. Ah, what a relief fresh fruit is to men trapped on a ship for a month." The man rolled his eyes praised Ranald and Manaan. Erich just rapped his fingers on the table. The man would continue in a moment.

"Deciding that the road itself would be watched, we began to creep along the farm, hiding between the vines and keeping an eye out for any sign of life. Just over a small hill, there was a lovely little town, as pretty as a picture can be. Finally, we had found signs of civilisation, that divine spark that sets us apart from all that dwell in the world. Then we saw it Signor.

The town had freshly cut nearby trees to erect a small palisade, and there were close to a hundred farmers armed with short swords, pitchforks and dinnerplates for shields. The harbour as it was was filled with a dozen ships that seemed to be largely abandoned. As comical as they looked, we sneaked away from them and returned back, to let you know what we discovered on this perilous journey."

Erich cracked his knuckles, the sound refreshingly short after the long winded speech that Rodrigo had prepared for a simple report.

The information however was vital. They had found actual people living there, and they had a harbour full of ships. Towns with harbours would be well supplied and have plenty of money to make a profit out of. They could even sail back home.

"How far away is the town?" Nearly a day's march away Capitan. We can be there by tomorrow if we started in an hour."

"We won't be starting in an hour. Rodrigo tell your men to get sleep. Hans, Luigi, Littorio, I want your men to bunk down and get some rest. We are going to march all night and surprise that militia tomorrow. Any questions?"

"Yes, I have one." Luigi spoke up. "You say that we are going to march all night and surprise them. Our men won't be in fighting condition if we march all night long." That was true. The men needed to be better rested. Unless of course...

"All right, change of plans. We are going to start marching and take it slow. We should secure the bridge by the time night falls and form up for battle tomorrow."

Littorio stared at him glumly. The man hated to move, which was an oddment for a mercenary. However he didn't object.

"Will we not be spotted by the town if we try to encamp around the bridges?" Hans raised a valid point. A bivouacked force could easily be assaulted and overwhelmed in in a sneak attack. On the other hand, the had a tactical advantage with the terrain.

Erich thought about the matter for a moment before asking Rodrigo, "How deep is the river? Can a small force ford it if we hold the bridge?"

"From the south and our immediate north, no. The river is too fast and too to allow for anything more than the movement of a few men. Our sentries should be able to dispatch them even if they make it across."

"Great, if all goes well, we should be able to attack the town tomorrow and gather as much loot as possibly can. Its about time we started our damn campaign." The men's eyes lit up. The prospect of loot was enough to put a cheer into their hearts. After all, this is what the Dogs of war lived for. The Empire might consider them to be unreliable soldiers at best, useful for auxiliary roles and filling up an army during campaign. Bretonnians might pay them with sheep, but Von Peiper's Regiment was filled up with enough disciplined killers that they could easily take on militia, even militia that seemed to be well defended in a fortified town.

"Eh, what happens if they would discover us? How are you planning to conceal our camp? A force this size, we will need magic to actually have the element of surprise." Luigi stroked his long blond hair as he finished raising his objection to the plan. Erich couldn't resist breaking out into a smile.

"Ah, yes, I suppose we would need magic to conceal our camp. Magic means we need mages. As it stands we have one. My lady, if you would be interested in honouring us with your company?"

As far as he could tell, the elf had sat on his chest the entire time without making a single noise. It was eerily cat-like. Even Rodrigo hadn't noticed her and the man was an excellent tracker if rather talkative.

Everyone stared at her as she came into the light. In Erich's borrowed clothes, the elf looked like one of those heroines from a cheap paperback book, dressed and ready to fight. She stood on her staff and smiled. It was a most winning smile.

"May I introduce, our patroness and a most accomplished mage."

The elf bowed and then spoke in perfect Reikspiel. "Gentlemen. You need not worry about concealing your forces. It will be as if you were never there."

Hans hissed. A Middenlander, he hated sorcery even more than the average imperial peasant. Luigi cast a more appreciative eye over her, drinking in her statuesque beauty. Littorio was far more interested in his crossbow, gently pulling the string to test it's tension. Rodrigo stared in awe at the creature before him, certain she had not been there a moment ago.

That was perhaps the beauty of it. The elf had not used any magic (that Erich knew of) ever since the ship. She had managed to sit in their council without anyone noticing her.

After a moment, Rodrigo found his voice. "And who would you be Signora?"

"I am Serra Seaheart, mage of the White tower of hoeth, and the most powerful mage you have seen." So stunned everyone was, they forgot that they hadn't seen wizards in action except far away. Erich understood that the elves were far more magically inclined than humans, and they would cast the most strenuous of human spells with an ease that was infuriating ot the Wizards of the Imperial college.

"And how do you propose to hide our entire army?"

She laughed. An enchanting sound. Even Littorio looked up. "This is not that big of an army. And I can hide your forces with as much ease as I hid my own person in the middle of this room without anyone noticing."

That was proof enough of her power. If she could hide herself in a small tent, she could hide a large army. Of course Erich did not know the details. As long as Serra Seaheart hid their army, they would do just fine on the morrow.

* * *

As the sun turned west, the regiment marched along the road. Rodrigo's men were scouting the way to warn them of any ambush, beastmen or otherwise. The stars were beginning to appear in the sky when they set about establishing a new camp at a small distance from the bridge. Littorio's men would hold the other side and scare off anyone that got too close. Everyone else was busy pitching tents when the mage strode into the middle of the camp. Everyone's eye was on her. Even if she were a simple elf maiden, the dress Serra wore would make her stand out anywhere. Men not on duty gathered around her to drink in her sight while keeping a respectful distance. It didn't do well to anger mages.

Serra conjured up a mist from the river itself. The humans gasped as the foam from the fast rushing river began to turn into a light steam that presently manifested itself into a fog. It was a simple spell of heating the water until it turned to steam. Serra then executed the last part of her spell. The steam cooled down enough to hang in low over their heads. The bridge, scarcely a few yards away became covered with a thick white smoke.

"It will last as long as I will it to." If she needed to clear the mist away, she would blow it upland instead. Serra smiled inwardly even as she kept up a stoic face. She would manifest a wind that would blow away the mist that surrounded them. A trivial spell nonetheless. It also allowed her to get more comfortable of the strange form of magic in this unknown land. Subtlety was the key.

The scout, Rodrigo muttered darkly to himself even as he went to sleep with his men. His job tomorrow was to scout the town and act as a vanguard while the rest of the force moved up and crossed the bridge.

The rest of the night passed quietly for her. Apart from Erich's light snoring in the tent she had been graciously given, there was almost total quiet.

* * *

An hour before dawn, Erich woke up. He went out of the tent and talked to a few men. Serra didn't wonder what he was talking about. Knowing humans it would be something droll about elves or magic. Her job so far was easy and she wondered if she would even need to cast spells tomorrow. The humans were dismissive of the town's defences. Erich was confident that their artillery would be more than a match for some wooden stakes and angry peasants with pitchforks. Serra wondered if humans cared much about taking the lives of their own. The Asur never revelled too much in bloodshed, even if it would be of the hated Druchii. Each dead elf was a tragedy for their race. Elves were dwindling even as humans multiplied. Maybe it was in their nature to kill each other to alleviate the suffering of their short and dull lives.

Erich and Rodrigo stood on the bridge, talking quietly. The mist sapped away any will they had of talking loudly. The Tilean scout was subdued ever since he and seen the mist. He muttered that it wasn't natural.

"Well of course it is not natural. That's why we needed a spellcaster."

"I do not know. I would rather let the enemy see us and defend the bridge if need be rather than using sorcery."

"Myrmidia's spear! You sound like Phillip." The would-be-priest was in a foul mood when he learned that a mage would be accompanying them in battle. Sigmar had fought against chaos, and to use it sat ill with him, and apparently with Rodrigo.

"No, the mist is not the problem. The fact that that woman was hiding and listening to us speak is the problem."

"Well, she is paying us good money for our services. Think of it like the time when we escorted the Tilean caravans across the badlands." The man smiled at that.

That was during the earlier days of the company. A hundred men who would pay to protect merchants plying their trade in more desolate parts of the Border princes and the badlands.

"Yes. I suppose. I never saw her. And I see everything."

"I know, I know. She is on our side."

"Is she? My grandmother taught me never to trust an elf." Tilean folk wisdom came in all colours and shapes.

"If we listened to your grandmother's wisdom, we would be farming outside Miragliano even now. When this campaign is over you can retire and buy your own farm instead of being a tenant"

"I suppose. I want to go home." Hearing the worldly tilean talk about home brought back bittersweet memories for Erich.

"I would rather go home with a fat purse rather than an empty one. Are your men ready?"

"Si Signor. We will be back before dawn."

"May Ranald favour you Rodrigo."

"May Myrmidia protect you Erich."

And with that the scoutmaster disappeared into the mist.

Erich turned his attention to the bridge he was standing on. It seemed to be a good enough bridge. Sturdy and practical. As all bridges should be. Two columns could march abreast and the entire company would be able to cross in a quarter of an hour. The design itself was an odd pastiche of different styles. Imperial style pillars held up the body itself while the woodwork reminded him of Bretonnian carpenters. It was certainly a strange combination.

From what Erich had read, most men grew closer in foreign lands when everything was out to get them. It might be the same here. Most probably they had stumbled across some colony across the sea that had grown well. His mind wondered back to the industral wonders of Nuln that turned the Reik black with soot and produced the awesome weapons of war that the empire had used to devastating effect in countless battles and skirmishes over the ages.

Yes, blackpowder was the great equaliser. With it, the Warriors of Chaos were as weak as a goblin to a handgunner and the largest ogres would be torn to shreds at ease. Erich never doubted in his cannons, and even now he had taken great effort to keep them in pristine condition. Perhaps in the far future all warfare would be conducted by these metal monstrosities instead of the close work of sword and pike.

It was idle thinking without a purpose. Erich supposed that is what set humans apart. While the dwarfs would work tirelessly for a century and a half to make a better sprocket, humans would use a lower quality one to use in clockwork.

His mind was still wondering when Rodrigo returned. The man was agitated.

"Report"

Here with an audience of one, Rodrigo's report was more clipped.

"It seems someone has beaten us to our town. Its being besieged"

"The beastmen?"

"No, the dead."

"I see."

"Shall I tell the others to call off the attack?"

"Wait, tell me how many are there?"

"Half a thousand. It seems like a good force to carry the town."

"That doesn't seem to be a problem."

"But they are the walking dead!"

"We shall put them to rest again. What's their disposition"

" They seem to be hell bent on attacking the town. We have a clear axis of advance on their flank."

"See? The magic worked. We now enfilading positions on our foes."

"I didn't expect the undead."

"Truth be told neither did I. But I never thought fish men would be real either?"

"What?"

"Nothing. Tell Hans' men to escort the cannons and Luigi to marshal his men. Its time we had a good battle."

Erich could sense the sun rise above when the last stragglers from Luigi's pikemen were at the halfway point. The sky was beginning to get lighter. His men moved slowly and methodically. They were being deployed in a square with cannons at the forefront. They knew their positions and would form up effortlessly.

In an hour they would be marching to battle.

There it was. The river had been crossed and the die cast. Von Peiper's regiment would earn their keep soon enough.

The last three men crossing the bridge were a bald man, a lithe youth and a big burly man holding a banner. They were visible in the rapidly clearing mist. Stealth would avail them little now. Erich ran up to join them, his last thoughts a prayer to Myrmidia to guide him in the tumult of battle.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Battle of Southshore**

* * *

Marshall Redpath looked north from the highest room in the Inn. The tavern was as busy as a place could be when besieged by the enemy, acting as a command centre for the defences of Southshore. Even now the main street ran busy with the town guard ceaselessly going on a patrol. The militia would be asleep for the most part. They were all denizens of the town who were older and suffered from the Horde's brutal ravages of the eastern kingdoms during the second war. Militia would be a great backup to regular forces from Stormwind. With a few dozen town guards, bolstered by the few surviving footmen of Hillsbrad, they would barely be able to do something vaguely useful before being slaughtered by the score.

What he had long feared had come to pass. The uneasy peace between the Alliance and the Horde had unravelled completely with a return of King Varian. Scarcely a fortnight ago, the citizens of Southshore had celebrated when they heard that the Lich King was dead and the inexorable tide of the dead and undead had been quelled. They would never have to fear the Scourge again.

Now Redpath stood at the highest point in an inn, overlooking his hastily constructed defences, in a town gripped utterly with fear and uncertainty. The undead marched again with all their horrific banners and diseases and necromancy, under a banner that every good man in the eastern kingdoms had to fear. The Forsaken, and the rest of the Horde, was on the offensive.

Southshore was of critical importance to the alliance in holding the tide against the Dark Lady. The smaller towns in silverpine had long been overrun and now the Horde poured in at a relentless speed that only the dead could have. The hillsbrad fields were overrun and turned into a staging camp for the forsaken army while Tarren Mill hosted a small force of deathguard and Dark rangers that had been wrecking havoc on Redpath's irregular forces and civilians. Even now he could occasionally hear the flight of a dark fletched arrow pierce the silence. More often than not, the shafts found some poor soul. Their morale was low enough and it would not take too much actually take the town. Redpath could feel the irony of it all. The most important alliance settlement north of the Thandol span, and it would fall like an apple from an orchard tree into the hands of the Forsaken. Farren, his second in command was busy drinking himself to death when Redpath explained to him what was bound to happen.

The king had managed to send a small fleet to evacuate them but Redpath feared it was all too late. They were being hemmed in by expert scouts and rangers. If the evacuation was to begin, significant numbers of militiamen would have to be diverted away from the wall to manning the harbour. An assault at that point would inevitably mean that the palisade's destruction and a virtually defenceless town that was packed to the brim with desperate men, women and children.

Redpath's blood still ran cold when he remembered what had happened to Stormwind in the aftermath of the first war. Though the Alliance and the Horde had stood together on several occasions to combat a greater threat, the duplicity of the horde was always consistent. They would doubtless destroy hillsbrad utterly and turn it into a blight infested dead land before claiming that they were attacked in self defence.

Varian would accept, and peace would be achieved over the bones of his loyal subjects. Redpath had heard from rumour that the only reason the horde even existed was because of Varian Wrynn's incompetence. At the end of the second war, the alliance had the horde in the palm of their hands. Lothar's sons had made the ultimate sacrifice to save Azeroth from the ravages of the demonic greenskins and their otherworldy horrors. Instead of eliminating that threat by ordering their extermination, he had fed and pampered them, just like Terenas. Even now Redpath remembered the bitter hatred thrown towards the Soldiers of Lordaeron by their own citizens when they had been ordered to pay more taxes to feed the orcs who still raided Alterac and Hillsbrad. Even now the king did nothing while his kingdom burned. Choosing instead to go on adventures with his friends and old, saving the world from bigger threats instead of leading the Alliance to victory.

By the light, had he so little to do that he was speculating over politics. It was not in Redpath's nature to be inactive. Part of him - the old soldier - welcomed the inevitable forsaken attack. With any luck he would go down fighting for Southshore, knowing that in the end, forsaken by his King and Nobles, he did his duty honourably.

Finding nothing better to do, he watched the sun set, taking in the picturesque view. Funny how he was beginning to appreciate the sun going down over the sea at the end of his life.

In the half light of the sun, he could see the bigger bulk of the forsaken army approach. It would seem they would be deployed for an attack tomorrow. This was it then. The beginning of the end.

For the last time, Redpath patrolled the streets of the town, taking in all the sights and smells of the place that he called home for more years than he could remember. The inn was full of people, but lacking in cheer. It was mostly frightened townsfolk and a few militiamen who were just as frightened as the people they were assigned to protect.

Redpath wondered if Jessen had enough turtle to make his Turtle Bisque. Perhaps no. The town had probably run out of turtle a while ago.

He wandered out into the streets, noting that the houses were full to bursting with fleeing farmers and townspeople, desperate to get to the boats. Varian Wrynn hadn't sent remotely enough ships to evacuate the town. The Alliance must truly be in dire straits.

Before the horde came to Azeroth, the region where the portal stood was known as the Black Morass. Nominally a part of Stormwind, they were as loyal as they could be to King what Redpath had heard, mostly the frightened rumours of the fleeing people of stormwind, the humans who lived in the Morass were butchered by the orcs. Entire communities were wiped out waiting for succour from Llane Wrynn. Lieutenant Redpath – as he was then – had scoffed at such rumours, thinking them baseless and coming from a desperate people willing to do anything for a place to sleep. Now, he was not so sure.

His musing had brought him to the town hall. The footmen on duty saluted him and let them in.

It too was filled with people, mostly of the nobler – or at least more rich – variety. Landlords, petty nobles and rich merchants huddled close to each other, clamouring for Redpath to let them on the ships. Ignoring them, the good Marshal made to leave the town hall when a conversation caught his attention.

The duo stood out due to their eccentric dresses. The man wore a wide brimmed hat and white robes that covered his body, while the woman wore a similar if simpler dress. He had a staff similar to the staves that adventurer mages used. They weren't making too much effort to hide themselves.

Marshall Redpath leaned in on their conversation.

"...no, the fog seems to be elemental in nature rather than arcane." The man was saying animatedly.

"So, the Horde is using their shamans to create this fog?" The woman replied.

"That is what I thought but..."

"I haven't detected any elemental activity. My cantrips would have activated if someone was riling up the elements or using the arcane." The woman seemed pleased with herself.

"Which means that the magic being woven is very subtle."

"Could it be due to the blood elves?"

"No, my wards would have detected any fel magic. As far as I can tell, the forsaken aren't using any warlocks in the area between here and Southpoint tower."

"Shadow magic perhaps?"

"No, we would have felt it."

Redpath turned away from the conversation as the mages moved on to discuss more academic matters regarding the fog. Great, now there is something or someone creating a magical fog by the bridge. It wouldn't matter now. Only a miracle could save Southshore now.

Instead he went back to the tavern and ordered a drink. Farren was already in his cups. The younger man from Stormwind had always gotten on Redpath's nerves. He would happily pay adventurers out of the town's coffers to keep the Murloc population under control instead of doing his job. Desperate to escape from the drudgery of Southshore the man had tried to countermand his orders on several occasions. However, the brass had decided that Lieutenant Orinelle was doing a spectacular job and posted him there permanently.

Now with the spectre of death looming, even he didn't seem so bad.

The two of them sat and drank for a couple of hours. By this time the rumours regarding a magical fog and the imminent forsaken assault had started to spread throughout the town. Drunkenly, Marshal Redpath thought that given a couple of days, the people would turn on each other and hand over the town to the forsaken on a platter.

"Marshal, you need to see this." Sergeant Hartman's voice was urgent.

Redpath staggered, almost tripping over the prostate form of Ornielle.

"What is it? Can't a man drink in peace?"

"It's the Forsaken, sir."

"What, are they attacking?"

"No. Yes... its complicated. You need to see it sir."

"Aright Sergeant. Help me up."

The highest room in the inn was filled with every officer that was present in the town, along with Magistrate Maleb himself. They were all crowding the windows trying to get a good look at something. The entire mood in the room was wrong. There was a jubilant air, as though the people at the window were watching something triumphant.

Raleigh the devout, a Knight of the silver hand noticed the Marshal and clapped him on the back. His mirth was the highest in the room. Coming from a dour handed former member of the scarlet crusade, it felt extremely grotesque.

"Praise the light Marshal Redpath, for it has delivered us!"

"What?" Redpath was having trouble processing what was going on. To him it seemed like there was an enormous practical joke going on, and he was to be the butt of it.

"Listen, have you ever heard a tune so sweet?"

"I can't hear anything in this room. There are too many people in my command centre."

The next thing he knew, The balding paladin was dragging Redpath out of the inn to a quiet corner, near the palisade they had erected. It was quieter now. Most people in the town were asleep.

Then he heard it. A faint sound coming from their side of the river. It sounded like a flute playing a light upbeat tune, like the ones used for marshalling men. Intently, Redpath kept listening, and then he heard another sound, a single drum beating a tattoo.

The horde was known to use drums, but the their rhythm was much slower and menacing. In contrast the drum beats he heard were much faster. It seemed like something used to set the beat to a concert.

What kind of person – or thing – would be playing music on the eve of battle?

"What is going on?"

"The light has answered. Behold our salvation."

Then the beat of the music changed. It was faster now. Something deep inside the drunk Redpath started. It was a primal urge to set his movement to the beat. He had to know what sort of madman – or madmen were performing on a battlefield.

He couldn't see. Suddenly a cheer went up from his room above. It seemed like everyone else was watching a game, and Redpath was the only one left out.

He ran back up to the room, shoving people out of his way. By then the music seemed to be much louder. Even the people inside the tavern could hear it. They were as confused as he was.

He muscled people out of the window, and finally understood what was happening. Giving a wild yell he ran down calling for every soldier to get ready for an assault upon the enemy.

Phin Odelic and his Apprentice had chosen a good spot to watch the entire spectacle. They were in the clock tower of the town hall and had a bird's eye view of the town and the surrounding area.

In the early morning light the fog was disappearing, and what it revealed was either mighty sorcery or a miracle indeed.

An entire army had materialized out of thin air. Nearly as big as the combined forsaken armies that were laying siege to the town, the army looked very impressive from a distance. They deployed in a shallow rectangle and advanced along the road, the music helping them coordinate themselves. He could see the glint of their weapons in the distance and realised what they were doing. They were cutting the Forsaken armies off from Tarren Mill and Silverpine. From what little Phin knew of military matters, doing such a manoeuvre would require incredible discipline. The adventurers and mercenaries he dealt with would have charged head first into the forsaken army. Even the Knights would have charged at the enemy instead of marching at spitting distance from the army.

The forsaken focused as they were on besieging Southshore had not expected something like this to happen. An entire army had bypassed their scouts and outriders and was marching in a threatening manner in their rear. The Deathguard and the Dark Rangers, the Elite of the Forsaken immediately began to re organize, forming into battle lines and sizing up this new threat. The majority of the army though had no such formal training, instead charging at their new foes with a terrible shout to Sylvanas, Queen of the Forsaken

In response, a single yell ran out from the strange army, and with a unison that would have shamed the Stormwind royal guard, they turned to face the forsaken and waited for the attack.

* * *

Erich was at the front line when the horde of the undead creatures charged. Luigi's voice rang out. "BRACE!" With an ease that marked them for the professionals they were, The pikemen formed up to repel the charge.

The first row of pikemen immediately dropped to their knees and held up their pikes at an angle. The second line took their position, with their pikes held straight at the charging foes. The and fourth line hoisted their pikes over the second line's shoulders.

The tide of the dead came at them screaming in tongues unknown that made little sense. Erich could feel the adrenaline flowing through his blood. Every instinct in his body was telling him to either meet the charge head on or flee. Either thing would break their formation and get them killed.

Instead he cocked his pistol and aimed it at a particularly big corpse that was running ahead of the others using it's loping gait.

The Nuln forged pistol rang true and the corpse's head immediately disintegrated, its momentum carrying it forward a few steps before the rest of the body dropped dead. It was an excellent shot, and Erich couldn't help but smile as he said, "Here they come boys. Stand your ground."

The corpses spitted themselves upon the pikes, clawing their way through the wooden shafts and steel speartips. The third and fourth lines began to poke at the dead, breaking their skulls and muscles like overripe fruits. Phillip's voice rang out from down the line. "Their Spirits are weak, AND THEIR FLESH IS WEAKER!" Soldiers throughout the entire line cheered at his words as they saw the large – albeit badly organised – attack falter and then get stalled. That was it. Their entire line had been pinned by the pikemen.

* * *

Loud booms rang out, startling Redpath. The sound was unmistakable. It was the roar of cannon. Their deliverers had brought cannon. Every minute or so, another thunderclap would rip through line while the moaning of the forsaken reached a fever pitch. Could it be? Could they break the forsaken?

Even now the entire militia was quickly mobilizing itself. Spurred by the rumour and news of an army that was battling the forsaken, they quickly began to run towards the site of the battle, to lend what help they could.

Most of the regulars left in Southshore were already forming up for an advance. From what he could gather from reports by Sergeant Hartman, Redpath surmised that most of the forsaken army was engaged with the strange soldiers. That meant that a small force of Deathguard and Dark Rangers remained between them and the most glorious victory since Blackrock mountain.

Even as the defenders left the safety of the palisade, the Death Guard broke the siege. Organized and well led, they would be able to fight the enemy much more effectively than the bulk of the forsaken. To his horror, Redpath realized what they had kept in reserve to keep the defenders from sallying out.

Three massive Abominations bore down upon the militia, their grotesque forms wobbling oddly as they ran. Everyone stopped to stare at the monsters that were running closer, and more than a few militia members collapsed as they began to make out the grisly details. Occasionally someone would recognise a feature from a loved one and scream in terror as the monsters found them and tore them apart. Their attack was beginning to falter right out of the gate, and the attention and efforts of the more elite part of the forsaken army was on their more dangerous opponents.

* * *

Erich let the artillery do it's bloody work. Littorio and Rodrigo were protecting it , and as such it was in a perfect enfilading position against the majority of the undead horde. Every minute or so, his precious cannons would ring out, cutting a bloody swathe through the enemy, leaving broken bodies in their wake, still twitching and trying to kill them. Some of his men who had lost their pikes switched to their swords and methodically crawled under the forest of pikes while killing any moving corpse. This part of a battle was not too different who you were fighting. Eventually the enemy would find purchase in the line, and bit by bloody bit destroy the spear wall they were in.

They had received the charge more or less perfectly. Their foes, their terminal condition notwithstanding, seemed to be rather poorly led and attacked in a large mob without any semblance or tactics. The artillery on the bridge had lay into the massed group with devastating results, killing scores of the dead with each cannon round. Under the withering enfilade, the line of the walking dead wavered, if it could be called that. Their charge had been blunted, and their war cries would avail them nothing. Now was the moment to crush them.

"Pikes to the front" Erich yelled.

"Si Capitan, Pikes to the front!" Luigi's voice carried over in response.

Like clockwork, the pikemen who had broken their weapons slowly began to move to the back of the line, while others took their place. The drum beat a quick tattoo, urging the men onwards while they formed up. Erich inhaled. This was it. The enemy was blunted and now He could seize the initiative.

He exhaled, calming his body. One. Two, Three. Raising his sword, Erich yelled "Advance". With a roar of assent, his men answered him with one voice. The drummer changed his tempo, and Rudi played a jaunty tune about a halfling's daughter.

* * *

Phin was casting fireballs and fros tbolts from the top of his tower, trying to aid the Southshore Militia. Most of the smaller spells hit the Abominations squarely but with very little effect. Their rotting glistening flesh protected them from minor spells. Honeywell was aiding the troops, armouring them in frost and slowing the creatures down, but there was very little the two of them could do to aid the enemy.

Gathering as much of his magical acumen, Phin cast a Pyroblast, channelling the arcane into a large bolt of fire and threw it at the nearest abomination. The creature was stunned by the ferocity of the attack and the concentrated fire burned through it's latent resistance, setting it alight.

Phin saw the thing explode before his eyes danced. He had put too much of himsself in the spell. This was dangerous and he couldn't resist sitting down on the closest surface. Honeywell caught him by his collar, her eyes full of concern. She had felt the magic he had cast, and it had scared the young apprentice. Phin smiled and said, "I am fine. I just need something to drink." He exhaled.

Honeywell conjured up some water for him, and he gratefully accepted. She was good at these kinds of spells. They sat down, enjoying a break even as the battle raged below them them.

"A pyroblast eh? I would think twice about casting it."

"Yeah, the smaller spells weren't cutting it from this far away. Good job on the frost armour though It will keep those things off balance."

"I just wish I could do more. I think I can do more in the middle of the fight."

"No, believe me. Its better for us to keep our distance. Let the soldiers handle the hand to hand combat."

The two of them sat before Honeywell spoke again. "So, do you know who they are?" There was no question as to who 'they' were.

"No, I don't. Perhaps King Varian hired adventurers?" From what he had seen adventurers fought ins small parties, not in large and organized armies.

"Perhaps. Although I must wonder where they came from."

"They hid in the fog and attacked the forsaken in the rear."

"Yes, but how did they get here? We would have known if an army was crossing the Thandol Span."

"Perhaps the recent storm destroyed our wards?" There had been a storm off the coast a couple of days ago, It would have destroyed their wards. Inclement weather was the bane of hastily put spells, as farmers in Westfall knew.

"It doesn't matter. They crushed the bulk of the forsaken army without any effort."

"Yes, so they have. I hope that they are on our side. I am afraid this war is going to be long and bloody."

* * *

The smaller part of the undead force advanced in good order, Erich had to admit. In contrast to the horde of corpses that had assailed them, this force would advance slowly and deliberately. He could see some flitting shadows moving away from them towards the west. He wondered if that was the necromancer, fleeing now that his forces had been routed.

It didn't matter. This force was in their way, and he would grind it down.

"Luigi, split your forces in two. Hans, get your men here. Sven, come with me."

* * *

The abomination that had caught fire screamed in a multitude of voices, that terrified the militia. It began to speak brokenly with a multitude of voices."IT BURNS, IT BURNS, MAKE IT STOP" In it's anger it turned on it's fellow and hit it with a flailing hook. Suddenly the three abominations were too busy fighting each other to pay attention to the Southshore militia. Redpath took a moment to observe the rest of the battlefield. Most of the forsaken had been crushed by the strange army that fought with spears. The dark rangers seemed to be breaking away from the battle while the Death Guard faced the enemy.

As the undead advanced in good order, the lines of their foes parted. The men with the two handed spears split in two and from the gap, a smaller force, much more heavily armoured and armed with halberds strode forth. A man, larger than the rest held aloft a banner that displayed a full shining over a raised sword. Strange runes were at the bottom of the banner, spelling something that Redpath could not read.

They advanced in a tight formation, with their polearms levelled at the forsaken. In contrast to the now rapidly charging forsaken, their steps were slow and measured, seemingly bracing themselves to receive the charge. The cries of the Forsaken, carried over, promising death – and worse – to everything that lived in the dark lady's name.

In contrast, the strange soldiers marched silently. It was then Redpath noticed that a single man was leading this small force. He wore strange clothes that were awash with a riot of colours and a hat that was as ostentatious as it was impractical. He carried a sword and a pistol, and his jaw was clenched.

Even as the Forsaken were almost upon them, the man stopped. The rest of the soldiers advanced but by then the man had his target. A single shot ran out one of the deathguard fell, it's head exploding in a shower of rotting brain matter and gore. Then the two forces clashed.

It seemed to Marshal Redpath that the Deathguard would have the better of it. From what he could tell, they were all expert warriors in life, and death had made them far more obedient. At the same time the way the strange soldiers marched was like gnomish machinery – reliable and goofy - compared to the movements of the forsaken.

Shouts and yells from both sides reached his ear. By then his forces had dispatched the remaining abomination and stood there watching the battle with him, keeping a healthy distance from the ensuing melee. They all had reason to be afraid of the Death Guard. The finest warriors of Humanity that had perished in the war with the scourge, raised again to serve their dark mistress. Dozen0s of alliance patrols had been ambushed by them across the eastern kingdoms, with the dead left horribly mutilated as grim reminders of who they were fighting.

All the same, they seemed to be doing rather poorly against this new foe. Interestingly, Redpath noticed that not a single one of the strange men fought defensively. Rather, they went fully on the offensive, stabbing, slashing and cutting the Forsaken with a wild abandon. Their defence was trusted to the man behind them, and next to them. It went against Redpath's training as a warrior. If a warrior was not able to change his in order be aware of his surroundings, and look to his defenses in battle he would be killed by a better one.

At the same time, it was hard to argue with the results. A few of the strange men went down to sword thrusts and mace blows, but the Death guard had to close in for each strike they made at that writhing mass of men and halberds. Arms carrying weapons and shields were lopped off or crushed by the tip or the blade of the halberds, and any fallen man would be easily replaced by someone moving up the line. They shoved as they fought the undead, pushing them and breaking their formation slowly but steadily.

Redpath realized that the forsaken were being pushed back towards Southshore and the arms of the militia. This was going to be a fine finish to this battle.

Just then a whistle of arrows caught the militia offguard. Arrows flew right by them, striking the footmen, their heavy armour not a match for the black fletched shafts.

Damn! Redpath had forgotten about the Dark Rangers. The undead Thalassians were as deadly in death as they were in life. Instead of firing into the melee, they began to pick apart the Southshore Garrison with unerring accuracy. Raleigh caught a black arrow in the eye and after a moment was turned into a pin cushion.

That was enough for the men of the Alliance. Stumbling and hoping not to catch an arrow, they ran back into the safety of the town.

* * *

Rodrigo had begun to skirmish with the fleeting shapes in the trees. Littorio's men were providing support to the main battle, but Rodrigo and his men excelled at individual marksmanship and generally laying stealthy. However it seemed like they had met their match. Taking aim was hard enough as it was when your opponent had bows that could outshoot you, but their aim seemed to be beyond compare as well. In a few minutes, one of his men had his throat pierced by arrows while two others were nursing their wounds in the grass.

Taking aim at a rapidly moving shape in the trees, Rodrigo led his target by a moment and fired. Something dropped dead in the trees. "That's one for one you bitches!" He yelled. It felt good to be back in danger. It sent the blood pumping from his fiery heart and made Rodrigo feel alive. And he was doing good. The skirmish with his forces was bogging the archers down, making them unable to help their undead brethren. For all their fancy armour, Rodrigo was unimpressed by the way they fought. No sense of tactics at all. Still the undead were not known for their tactical acumen. The corpses raised by the necromancers were selected for obedience, not for genius.

As another man went down, Rodrigo wondered how long they would be able to keep this up.

* * *

Serra saw the skirmish in the woods. Ever since she had dispelled the fog she had not used her magic in a way that would scare the men around her. Instead soldiers would find themselves incredibly lucky as their munitions plate and broken chainmail would be impervious to harm from ravening undead hands clutching rusty weapons. Lightly injured soldiers would wake up in a day without even remembering their wounds.

Now, Serra had a chance to show them her power. She planted her standard on the ground, feeling the pull of magic flowing into her staff, and by extension her. It was an awesome feeling to be awash with magical power without the fear of overloading yourself. She slowly began making an incantation that summoned metal and heated it. As she completed it, the skies above the skirmishing archers burst open in a cloud of metal. Hundreds of shards began to fall upon the skirmishing archers hiding in the trees. Their heat set the trees on fire and buried through leaf, branch and flesh with equal ease. A rather simple spell from the lore of metal that was extremely effective on the battlefield, especially when magic allowed her to imbue the spell with far more power than it should have.

Serra was rewarded with the sight of a dozen and a half figures running away from the burning tree. Their movement was too fast for humans, but she could see what they were. For a moment her heart stopped as she took in their countances. Their ears were twice hers but their faces held a similar set. They had been undead elves.

Too shocked to do anything, she let the creatures escape.

* * *

The armoured and walking corpse tried to bash Erich with his shield. He simply moved sideways and aimed a kick at the shield. The creature was unbalanced and quickly toppled over. Erich pointed his pistol at the corpses' head looking into it's unnaturally glowing eyes. The trapped body looked at him and spoke something. It might not be a language he would understand but Even Erich could realise that the twice dead creature was actually capable of speech.

Apart from necromancer and vampires, those that delved in the dark art of necromancy raised puppets of flesh and bone rather than things that could speak. Something was decidedly here.

As Erich fired the pistol, turning the offending face into mush, he vowed to look into the matter if he would eventually have the time.

He holstered his sword, clutched his Amulet of Myrmidia and gave a silent thanks to the Goddess of battle and Strategy.

Just as he finished his prayer, he heard the moving of great hinges. The doors to the town were opening up and there was a small group of soldiers striding out of the city. Erich did not know how good they were, but they seemed richly armoured compared to his men. Their weapons and shields were bigger than he could comfortably wield and the rest of their gear matched this slightly misshapen scale.

Seeing this small force approach, Hans gave a shout and the Halberdiers moved towards Erich. They were prepared for the worst.

Sven stood on Erich's right while Hans was on his left. His Halberdiers had already braced themselves to receive this potential new threat when a man, much more elaborately armoured than the rest appeared. He seemed to be wearing armour similar to that worn by the Knightly orders of the empire but the tabard he wore bore an unfamiliar device. It was a bright blue that had a stylized lion's face drawn on it.

The man spoke something and his men cheered. Erich couldn't quite make it out. It seemed to be words similar to what the corpse had tried to say, but it might as well be Khazalid to him.

"Hey Sven, can you understand what they are saying?" Hans gruff voice rang out.

"Should I?"

"Well you are Norscan aren't you?"

"I was born in Nordland. My mother was a washerwoman at a tavern - "

"So you can't understand what they are saying?"

"No!"

"Strange. I always thought that Skeggi would have more warm weather." Good old Hans. Gruff and loyal and dumb. As good a soldier and a sergeant Erich could wait for. He turned to look at the bearded Middenlander

"I suppose that it will be safe to say that we aren't outside Skeggi then?" He asked caustically.

Hans nodded for a moment before he processed what that fact now meant.

"Where are we?"

"Truth be told Hans, I do not know where we are."


	6. Chapter 6

**New Allies**

* * *

The lighthouse pierced the fog and mist that clung to the low seas like a goblin clung to a sack of gold. It's large light, forged in Ironforge and designed by Gelbin Mekkatorque himself, did not flicker or waver as it acted as a beacon for ships that would set sail for the biggest port in the Eastern Kingdoms. Even now smaller cargo vessels and transports would be approaching the harbour, preparing to load troops and supplies to send to Alliance forts and settlements throughout the world to wage war against the duplicitous Horde.

Like the phoenix, the city had once crumbled to dust and ash, at the bloody conclusion of the first war, before rising again stronger than before. Humanity now had lost most of its once mighty kingdoms. Lordaeron had died, and it's people had been raised from the dead to fight under the banner of the horde and to run horrific experiments on any caught in their hands. Stromgarde was largely depopulated with it's capital a battleground between Crushridge Ogres Arathi soldiers and Forest Trolls. Gilneas was now a pathetic shadow of what it had been during the second war. Dalaran had declared it's neutrality ever since the battle against the lich king. Alterac didn't exist as anything but a few cutthroats playing at nobles. Kul'Tiras had been inexplicably lost to sea, as if the recent rumblings in the sea had swallowed Lady Proudmoore's homeland whole

Of all the scattered kingdoms, Stormwind was the only one that had grown. Thousands of fleeing people had swelled it's numbers and increased it's power. Now Lieutenant Ornielle was going to add to Stormwind's might with another town's worth of civilians.

The ships slowly moved towards the harbour, taking care not to crash into other vessels, get rammed by the Steamships or run aground on shoals. A dozen or so ships filled with frightened townspeople would not please the military brass, but it was better than the last Alliance harbour north of the Thandol span.

Farren had barely broken up from his bender when Major Redpath had clapped him in the back and hugged him before buying him another drink. For a moment Farren thought that he had died and gone to a better place. The truth as it turned out was even less believable. As the day ended, the ships were set to set sail. A week's worth of sailing and they would reach Stormwind. Accompanying Farren Ornielle were half a hundred militiamen, who had been promptly disbanded and were insistent on accompanying their family and friends to stormwind.

The good Lieutenant had a sealed letter from Marshal Redpath ready to be delivered to Major Samuelson. Hopefully it would make him the commander of a garrison in Westfall. When he was less experienced, Farren had always chafed for action. Now after seeing it Second hand, all he wanted to retire and lord over farmers in peace. Surviving sieges took nerves of steel and a different temperament than ordering adventurers to kill Naga and Murlocs that occasionally wandered too close to the town. He hadn't even bothered to look at the strange army that was encamping in the woods even as he was leaving.

Thankfully the Marshal was fond of writing detailed field notes and Ornielle had finished his reports based on his superior's work. It should tell Samuelson everything he needed to know.

Slowly but steadily, his ship found an empty quay and lurched towards it. The relief on the faces of the civilians on the ship was palpable, as was their wonder. Most of them were peasants from hillsbrad or townsfolk from Southshore itself. The size and scale of Stormwind were too much for them. They had reached safe haven. And what a haven it was. Even from the harbour, the massive shape of Stormwind Keep was visible, it's white walls and blue roof standing as a beacon of humanity. It helped to forget that it was largely rebuilt by the dwarfs though. Most of the people would either find shelter in the Old Town or Elwynn forest.

Ornielle's job was to make sure that Samuelson got his report. He raced ahead and commandeered a horse from the stables. Messengers from the front were always higher priority. He trotted through the city at a leisurely pace, taking in the sights of the town. He had heard something about the strange night elves – new members of the alliance who had set up an embassy in the park and desired to see them up close. The few of the night elves he had met during the course of his duty were mostly adventurers, and suffered from the same single mindedness of their kind. Too focused on collecting murloc heads and Naga tails for a few pieces of silver. All the same Ornielle had to admit that there was a sort of savage beauty among them.

Eventually he wound up in the old town and passed through several taverns and inns, noting that they full of people from than before. Soldiers patrolled the streets in greater number, wading through the crowd while staying alert. Riding a horse would take too long here, but Farren was determined. He would arrive at the keep in style.

He finally did by the time the sun was directly overhead, shining down upon him and cooking him in his Steel armour. He finally got off the horse when the Keep's guards challenged him. Showing his credentials, he waited while taking in the view of the canals. Farren had heard rumours of a giant albino Crocolisk that patrolled the sewers and ate orphaned children while growing but he had grown out of it. Still, after yesterday, it never hurt to double check.

A page in the livery of the king returned presently, whispering something to the guards. They beckoned Lieutenant Ornielle and stared him down. Then they uncrossed their weapons and let him enter.

This close to the keep's doors, Farren was in no mood to hurry. Here he was, at the highest point of his life. If his father could see him now, he would be proud. Runty Ornielle, a Lieutenant of Stormwind and a soldier who had been permitted to enter the king's own home. As a result, by the time he got up the stairs, Farren's head was raised in a way that made him look as someone caricaturing a member of Stormwind's House of Nobles. The guards doubtless thought so, because they sniggered as they let him in to carry on his message.

The keep was lavish on the inside. A straight going upward at an incline led to what Farren surmised was the actual throne room. Anduin Wrynn had sat upon it for the last few years, his regents being a brave warrior and a cunning woman. Farren had heard rumours that Lady Katrana Prestor was actually a dragon in disguise, but something about the idea seemed preposterous in his head. Dragons were big liards. They didn't become attractive young women. A better reason was that maybe she had fallen out of favour with the king and gone into exile. From the sparse bit of court gossip he heard, it seemed that Varian and Katrana were quite the couple after his return from exile. Now she was gone, and the rumour mill suggested that she was either with Varian Wrynn's bastard child, Had been executed for treason, and a mixture of the two.

All the same, the man upon the Throne of Stormwind now Varian, and he reportedly slaughtered the dragon and hung her head above the city gates. Best not to dig into it and focus on what he had to do.

In one of the several chambers that lay along the path to the throne room,Major Samuelson was pouring over a large and detailed map of the Eastern Kingdoms. It covered the entire table, and was prevented from rolling over itself with the help of a sword, a knife, an axe and an arrowhead holding it's edges in place. The man was tracing a line from eastern Grim Batol through the badlands and eventually redridge. It was at that point that Farren made his introduction. Major Samuelson got up with a staff.

"Ah, yes. What do you need?"

"Report from the front sir." Farren said, holding out Marshal Redpath's letter.

"Indeed, what front is that?"

"Hillsbrad foothills."

"I see, let me read your message."

While the senior officer read his message, Lieutenant Ornielle took a quick cursory glance at the map. Everything north of the Thandol span had no blue token. They had been abandoned, along with the remainders of Stromgarde.

With a start, Major Samuelson slammed down the letter on the table. His face was a mask that seemed to betray no emotions. "You, you came from the battle of Southshore yes?"

Even as he nodded his assent, Farren Ornielle thought it odd that the person who regularly read his reports and corresponded with him for the last four years had forgotten where he had been deployed. It was altogether rather strange. Perhaps the stress of a war was getting to Samuelson now.

"Very well, come with me."

The man briskly walked out of the room into the main hallway, beckoning Farren to follow him. They were walking up the way to the throne when he realised where he was headed to. Gulping and not believing his luck, he stopped to catch his breath when Major Samuelson said, "Wait here. I will go inform the court."

Cleverly, Farren slowly edged towards the edge, near the royal guard that patrolled the outer alcove of the circular courtroom. He had an express view of what was happening.

The king's massive frame sat on the chair reading something. Major Samuelson walked up to and whispered something to the guard. The man nodded and told him to wait. It seemed to be a less busy day at the court as there was only a small gaggle of courtiers here. They were largely outnumbered by messengers, scribes and pages that were ready to write down the king's words and proclamations. A few high elves, dwarves from Ironforge and Night elves from darnassus represented the rest of the Alliance.

Samuelson was third in line. The person before him, a person in a westfall guard's uniform passed a message that was intercepted by a page. He read it before quietly passing it to the king's guards, eyes downcast. Farren assumed that the news was not good.

The second man wore the uniform of a messenger from Theramore. His uniform was white and he wore a tabard with the a stylised anchor embroidered in cloth-of-gold. The page read his message and waved him forwards. The man was now in the centre of the court, with the eyes of every person in the room squarely upon him. Farren leaned in to watch, excited at the game of courtly intrigue being played before his eyes.

"King Varian, Lady Jaina Proudmoore asks for aid. We have lost our foothold in Durotar, and are being pushed back to Northwatch even now. If the fort falls, we will have lost the barrens for good and will be hemmed in the Dustwallow marshes. We need the help of our allies."

Varian Wrynn sized up the messenger. "I will see what forces we can send to aid our fellow ruler. Rest now, emissary. You will have your answer tomorrow."

The man bowed and left. The audible murmur that Farren heard spred throughout the room was not good. Several mentions of 'defeat' and 'overrun' were mentioned. From what little he knew about the continent of Kalimdor, it seemed that the alliance was as hard pressed there as they were in the eastern kingdoms.

It was now Samuelson's turn. He gave his letter to the the page, who read it and his eyes immediately beamed up. The man passed it to the king, who read it in a half asleep manner before smiling. He nodded at the page who immediately spoke loudly with a clear voice, cutting through the murmuring that was now intensifying.

"Lords, Ladies and Soldiers of Stormwind. I have been bidden to share news of a crushing Alliance victory in these times of trial for our great cause.

The forsaken marched on Southshore, a rightful domain of our most Valiant King less than a fortnight ago. They made to assault the town but were crushed by our valiant forces in the field. We have put them to flight and given the Horde a taste of what it means to raise arms against the Stormwind and the Alliance.

The forsaken army is utterly crushed and sent back to the grave, and it seems like our dominion is secure."

Scattered applause broke out from the courtiers and the ambassadors. The relief on the face of everyone was palpable. The last few weeks seemed to have been defeat after defeat for the Alliance, with the horde marching into ashenvale and despoiling the ancient homeland of the night elves and the forces of Northwatch being pushed out of Durotar and the Northern Barrens. News of an Alliance victory restored much needed morale to the people in the room. In time the news would spread and people would have more resolve to fight this war.

Farren waited for the rest of the day, watching the comings and going ins of the court with interest. At length, the King made to retire for the day, and the royal guard began herding out civilians out of the room. The only people left were to be Major Samuelson, the generals of the Alliance, and the ambassadors from the other races. With a gulp he realised that the former man was beckoning him. Quickly, he followed his superior through the rear of the throne room.

A bigger map of Azeroth lay on the table. The King, Varian Wrynn himself, his advisors and military staff poured over the map marking out every detail that they could make before discussing ideas with each other. Despite the high opinion Farren had of himself, he felt out of place here. This was no place for him. He felt unwanted and slowly moved to a corner.

After a while the king began to talk of Hillsbrad. Farren's ears perked up at that. While he couldn't make out what was being said, the talk was more animated, with even the elves and the dwarfs joining in.

….but we do not know much about them now. You there, messenger, come over here." The king's booming voice commanded. Scarcely believing his luck, Farren walked up to the table feeling everyone's eyes upon him and bowed low.

"Your Majesty." He said, the picture of humble contrition.

"You were dispatched by Marshal Marcus Redpath to deliver this message, correct?"

"Yes your Highness."

"And did you travel alone?"

"No your highness. I travelled with the small fleet that was sent to southshore to evacuate the town."

"What is lefr of our disposition in the town?"

"A hundred or so remaining men from the Hillsbrad and Southshore garrisons, bolstered by the milita who elected to stay."

"And what of this strange army that won us this victory?"

"I do not know what to say my lord. I was knocked out during the early stages of the battle, and when I came through, they were burning the dead and making camp in the woods surrounding the town."

"Did you see them fight?"

"I am sorry your majesty, but I did not."

"Very well messenger. Get some rest. The quartermaster will sort you out."

With an imperious wave of his hand, the king himself dismissed Lieutenant Farren Ornielle. This was a story to be told to one's grandchildren. With wings on his feet, he glided to the barracks and spent a night drinking in his old favourite haunts in the Old Town and going to bed without fear of the undead stabbing him in his sleep.

"This was certainly unexpected." The king's voice was not entirely free of worry. "I had all but written off Southshore and the northern half of the continent. Now..."

"We could attack up the river and strike into Lordaeron itself if we have the opportunity. The Bitch Queen is on the run and we can end her here." A general spoke. His accent had the cadences of Lordaeron. Perhaps the man still dreamed of reclaiming his home.

"We simply do not have the numbers for such a misadventure. Might I remind you, Theramore is under threat and out allies in ashenvale are fighting a losing battle against the enemy. We need to make a strong show of force and aid them." A woman from Elwynn argued.

"And lose the chance to reclaim Lordaeron? How many years has it been since we have been on the defensive? How many people live a life of scorn and shame in Stormwind hoping to return to their rightful homes? We have the chance to free this continent from the infection that is the undead."

"And condemn our allies to death and worse? Do you know what the horde does to people that it takes alive? Would you rather wish our allies and kin to be slaves to the horde? To toil in mines and be sport for them in bed? Just so you can gallivant around your home and pretend that the last decade did not happen?"

"You dare? Where was stormwind when we paid for the orc internments with our sweat and blood? Where were our allies when we were left to fend against our Bastard Prince and his legion of the dead? Where were you when our hope of reclaiming Lordaeron was dashed by the Forsaken? Do you wish everything north of the Thandol Span to be a place of blight and death? Our ancestral homelands in Arathi where the bones of our ancestors lie to be turned into horrors from the crypt so they can mock us in our sleep?"

Varian generally let his generals work out strategies and bounce their plans of each other. It kept them competent. At the same time, the last few weeks had been trying. The swell of refugees might have increased Stormwind's prestige and power in the Alliance, but getting the people of different kingdoms to work together was being a pain that he had not expected.

He thudded his fists on the table, bringing the discussion to an end.

"Enough. While we bicker here, the forsaken will be gathering for a counter attack. Admiral, I want you to prepare our fleet. Stormwind does not forsake it's allies to the mercies of the Horde. We will help them and beat back the Orcs and trolls into the desert whence they came."

"Who will lead the attack sire?" The woman asked eagerly. She was young and soemthing about her reminded him of Tiffin.

"I will commander Blueheart."

An audible gasp went out. The king himself would be commanding the war against the Horde in Kalimdor. So far Varian Wrynn had left campaigning to his generals, but now he would be taking a personal approach in this war.

The only man not ecstatic at this was the General from Lordaeron. He gritted his teeth and asked. "And what is to become of Hillsbrad sire?"

"We will dispatch reinforcements to garrison it. Once we have dealt with the horde in Kalimdor, we can march on Lordaeron iself."

"Sire, what if the Forsaken were to regroup and attack again?"

"They will not."

"How would His Majesty know that?"

"Because you will ensure it general. I am putting you in charge of the defence of the town. Once we have crushed the horde in Kalimdor, we can use the port at Southshore to invade lordaeron in strength and restore the kingdom to it's former glory."

"Sire, we will not have enough men for that and the forsaken will be on the march soon."

"Yes, which is why I am sending a flight of Gryphons there. Ambassadors, would you be kind to welcome this strange new army into the Alliance on behalf of us all?"

* * *

Erich was sitting in his new tent in the early morning gloom, rummaging through the remainder of his clothes. He had shared around half of his apparel with Serra, and the rest was now due for a wash. The only clothes he hadn't touched were an old memento he kept, a relic of better times and once bright future. Even in the gloom it caught his eye. Akin to a Sollander Knight's uniform, but far more elaborately embroidered with gold inlays tracing out the sunburst. Like all military costumes designed for nobles, it was extremely beautiful and notoriously impractical. Years of wearing clothes like these while growing up had made him realise that they would be a hindrance for running, let alone the rigours of combat.

Keeping it almost reverently aside, he searched for more practical gear. He found a warm wool shift that was almost threadbare, but would keep away the chill. Another (smaller) codpiece that would keep his privates from dangling out and a fresh pair pair of woollen hoses that would keep him warm. The weather in this damn place was a shade too cold for most of his men, who were from the warmer lands of the Tilean city states. Sven and Hans didn't even notice the change in temperature and wore similar clothes to what they wore daily.

The battle had gone spectacularly well. Only a half dozen men were dead, and the rest would recover. For all their slavering ferocity, the undead here fought in a manner far more similar to the living. They would break and flee as though they still had enough semblance of life. He remembered talking to veteran mercenaries who had fought the forces of chaos. According to the Venerable Voland, the Northerners would fight in a similar manner. With fury and bluster as long as the battle went their way, and breaking when the battle turned hopeless. It seemed that the dead were not so different here after all.

"Hey Captain, they are carting in more food, you want to grace us with your presence for breakfast?" Rudi's head popped into the tent. The man was certainly in high spirits. Pilfering through the corpses had been a profitable venture, with the dead holding on too far too many trinkets and rings that would fetch a good value back home. Rudi alone had managed to acquire five shiny rings, rubies and garnets and other more exotic stones that he didn't even know the names of.

"Fuck you Rudi" was the response Erich gave as he put on his hat.

The people of the town had largely fled on the ships Rodrigo had noticed. It seemed that no one wanted to stay in a place where the undead could regularly besiege frontier towns. Unlike the peasantry of Mousillon or Sylvania, these people had somewhere to flee to. Erich couldn't help but sympathise with them. Losing your home and sailing to distant shores to a life of uncertainty was a decision that had been made for him a long time ago. All the same their departure had left a lot of supplies in the town. Initially he wanted to sack the town after heroically saving it, but Erich was content with them giving away their food as payment.

To be completely honest, he wasn't sure that the people there had understood their threats. A lot of pointing and grunting and pointing at his belly had gotten the point across that they needed food. The few soldiers and irregulars were happy to oblige. As it was they were treating them very well on the homely fare they had.

Luigi wanted to move into the town and garrison it, but Erich was wary of that idea. It was a small step from that to sacking it in a night of drunken debauchery. He did not want to lose some of his boys on a small town, especially when it was providing him with supplies and what he assumed was good will. He would rather move inland and sack any other settlements nearby. A jam packed town that was being evacuated meant that the land around it had been lost. It was only fair to rescue any large quantities of valuables from the clutches of the dead that would be crawling over the place.

It might also be profitable to acquire minor contracts while they were here. Mercenaries in Tilea were no stranger to warfare. As it was Erich could feel conflict brewing upon the wind. If he could find some minor Lordling and secure secondary jobs, they might just end up with more money than they had bargained for. That would bring cheer to his men. However, a contract needed to be mutually legible. The language barrier was an issue. Points and grunts, great as they were at getting the emotional impetus of an argument through the other party often lacked nuance that even a simple yes or no did. If ogres could understand enough Reikspiel to enter contract with mootlanders and averlanders, then so could Von Peiper's Regiment with some distant humans.

Mind flush with business ideas, Erich sat down to eat with his friends. Most of the Sergeants would be eating with friends, but Rodrigo was sitting with them. His men were largely asleep. At night they would try to go north, reconnoitring along the river to look for more towns or settlements either held by the undead or abandoned. Their knowledge of this land was lacking at best, and the only landmark they had so far was the road and the bridge that passed over a river.

Part of him wanted to breach a cask of rum, drink with his friends and pass out. Another part, the more responsible knew he had to stay sober. Besides, would eventually run out and there would be hell to pay.

The breakfast passed with the amount of small talk about boring details that Erich had heard half a hundred times before. The only thing of interest was the Elf Mage, Serra. She had been treating the wounded, using magic to heal the soldiers that weren't dead. Their return to fighting condition had all the hallmarks of being remarkable. Broken bones were mending in hours rather than weeks. Stab wounds and gouge marks were being healed so fast that there was little – if any – scarring. Humans instinctively distrusted magic. It was entirely unwholesome at best. At the same time, getting healed would be a prospect very few people would refuse outright.

After a few minutes Serra appeared and joined them at the table. Compared to her largely stoic outlook throughout the battle and the entire journey, she seemed at once like a different person. She attacked a piece of bread and ham, eating the entire platter with gusto. Pointedly ignoring the alarmed stares of everyone else at the table. Rodrigo looked at her darkly. Phillip made the sign of the hammer and began to recite a litany of protection against sorcery under his breath. Rudi ogled at her, drinking in her shape that was extremely well accentuated in Erich's clothes. Sven, the person sitting next to her was the only person completely at ease around the mage, dexterously picking out the next drumstick or wad of butter he needed.

Funny, Erich thought. Elves needed to eat too. That thought had never consciously crossed his mind before.

After a few minutes of silence, Erich said. "Thank you for joining us Madame."

* * *

Serra looked at him for a moment, her eyes widening as she realised that she was sitting in the middle of a group of soldiers. She had fought with them in the battle before, most of her spell work lending them aid in ways so subtle that the humans couldn't recognize them. Their armour was proof against the most vicious of strikes, while the enemy's armour was flaked with rust. The losses the humans had taken had only occurred when they had ventured too far away from her protective spells. Of course, in typical human nature, they were too slow witted to comprehend her efforts.

"Yes, this seat was empty, and I was hungry. I hope I am not being a burden on your most esteemed colleagues." The last word was worded delicately, almost like a backhanded remark.

The creep, Rudi, smiled and said, "Not at all. We are very happy you joined us here. It is as if the Goddess Rhya has graced us with her presence." He finished by staring at her in a manner that was anything but devout. Serra sighed inwardly at the poor creature. Yes, it was known that the humans were enthralled by elves due to their nature, but this one was acting like a puppy, yapping to get her attention. Instead she turned to look at the captain. With the barest hint of a smile, he said, his voice even. "My pious friend here was trying to suggest that we do not have a problem with your presence on our humble table. He is rather given to godliness, so forgive his _piety_ if you will."

Phillip hastily finished his beer and stalked off, muttering about heresy and witchcraft. Rodrigo stalked off to join him, moving unsteadily. At the same time, Sven was eating noisily, his actions remarkably similar to a hog feeding on acorns.

"No, I do not mind. I have been compared to divinity by ah , _godly,_ men before. The funny thing about them is, they do not seem very devout to clergy. They tend to all ask for the same, _favour._ A bit more of my divine presence. Some bit of leg, perhaps a scrap of clothes that touch my nether regions. You humans seem really interested in stripping your gods naked?"

"What is it that you do to these devotees your Ladyship? I am sure after a while, even someone as - ah, what do I call it – divine as you must get tired from all the clamour you seem to raise." Compared to every other human, at least Erich could ask her a question without leering down her chest. Given enough time he could also engage in something remotely approaching banter – a rare occurrence for his race. Right now there was a hint of a smile on his face and he was looking at Rudi, whose face still had that infuriating smile.

"I try and turn them into newts." The smile disappeared and the would be lover fell out of his chair with a shriek.

The bigger human, who was stuffing his face laughed at that. There was a large amount of pure innocent mirth in his voice. Serra couldn't help but smile with him.

"She has you there Rudi. Now why don't you apologise to her for your _worshipful_ behaviour and we can all start fresh." Rudi's response was to grab a glass of beer and run away as fast as he could.

Still chuckling at the scene, Sven finished eating and got up. "I will make sure he doesn't hurt himself."

The next few minutes were spent eating quietly. Serra was glad for the silence. Casting spells that potent had taken a lot out of her. After a good night's sleep tending to the wounded, she had woken up famished and wanted to eat. Generally she would have avoided the humans while eating, but she was hungry and there was an empty spot on the table. As far as she could tell it had not ended badly. The Tilean was angry at her because she had hurt his professional pride. The Sigmarite distrusted magic and elves as his primitive religion told him. The creep was either trying to get under her skin or in her skirts. Erich on the other hand.

He stood up and walked over to her, sitting down at a distance near enough to engage in conversation, but respectful of her personal space. Now that everyone else had gone, Erich left his guard down. He was worried.

"You need something human?"

"Yes, I was wondering if you could speak the local language? You seem to be well travelled so if anyone here has a chance of saying what the people in that town are saying, it might be you."

Serra had not seen any person from the human settlement up close, rather focusing her efforts on caring for the sick and scrying the undead elves that seemed to be running west into the interior. This morning the last she had seen them reach a land of craggy forests and small – abandoned – villages that reminded her of Chrace. It was true that the high elves were a dying people. Fewer people would be born each year, and each elf life lost was a small blow to the entire people.

"I will see what I can do. What makes you think that I am well travelled?" It was a genuine question she asked.

"Well I was going over the money you paid us with for our work. Most of the money comes Marienburg, which means precisely nothing since it is a notoriously important city state. You also had some coins from Kislev, which is somewhat rarer but still valid payment as far as I am concerned. " He stopped, then bringing up a separate pouch, smaller but still jingling with coins. He upended it. A dozen or so coins scattered onto the dark rich table, glinting in the sunlight.

"These two coins are very interesting. This one, if I am not very wrong is from Cathay of all places." A single rounded piece of jade, punch marked with an emblem of Zhongfeng, Governor of Eastern Cathay was held up in his hands. In the light of the sun, it looked almost translucent.

"Now this other one is made of ivory. I have only seen a coin like this twice in Nuln, and they were forgeries. I can bet my pistol, that this one isn't." A single perfect circle of ivory nestled between his thumb and forfinger, marked with a small figure of The Goddess of Victory, worshipped by a Markandeva, Former Potentate of Southern Ind.

"These two coins are of more professional interest to me. If I am not wrong, this one comes from the temple cities of the lizardmen. A small piece of gold, irregularly shaped and broken. It would seem that you broke it off from something." He carefully put each coin back in the pouch when he finished.

"And now there is this one. This is beyond priceless." A single coin, thicker than the rest lay on the table. Before starting my own company, I fought in araby, in the different wars between the cities of Copher and Fyrus. One of the lads in my company found a bag of coins in the palaces of Fyrus, and took it for a prize." His face grew darker.

"The people of Copher wanted nothing to do with it. Markets would get abandoned when he would walk in. He was called a dead man walking and shunned. Even whores would not take a coin, made as it was of solid gold. A few of the more unscrupulous men did take it, and my friend wore clothes fit for a king, with a hat with enough bird feathers to make him the envy of everyone else in the company, although our company master thought he looked like a Cock. He decided to stay there for the rest of his life and start a family."

"Now I left Copher to return to Tilea. I started my own band of mercenaries and fought for a year and a half before being hired by the Sultan of Fyrus. He wanted soldiers for a war against the horrors that inhabited Copher. I was intrigued because it was a bustling port when I had left."

"After weeks of Marching, we reached Copher. The city was a desolate ruin, plagued by ghouls and other terrors. As I walked through the markets, looking for my friend's lodgings, I saw a site I shall never forget. A totem made of flayed human bodies was hanged in the center of the square. The grisly trophy still gleamed wet in the sunlight, and on the top was a skinned face with a pouch in it's mouth. It still wore a hat, its feathers still making the head look like a skinned Cock."

He left the coin lying on the table.

"Now you are better at speaking in different languages than anyone else here. I am asking you for help because my men haven't figured out yet that we do not know where we are. They will burn us both alive if they know what our current situation is."

"So what do you want me to do." Serra asked. The human had attempted to frighten her with his knowledge of the restless dead in Nehekara. Personally, she thought that the entire affair was characterised by the short-sightedness of the lesser races. The restless dead were known for their possessiveness.

"Stay close to me. Help me figure out what they are saying. I can keep my boys pacified as long as there is loot to gather and money to spend. Given enough time we can figure out a way to go back home."

Serra had to admit, the human's plan was not bad. Mercenaries would be happy as long as they had money to spend and fights to fight. She could lend a hand to figure out what they were saying and establish some form of communication with these distant humans. Sorcery might not even be required.

"Very, well. I do not see why not."

* * *

Erich exhaled. Good, the elf had been convinced. He was afraid she was going to poke holes in his argument and he would spend the rest of the morning trying to get her to act as his translator. Maybe later in the day the two of them could take a walk to the town and start learning the language. He had to admit, however, that apart from the threat of the undead, the place was incredibly beautiful. It reminded him of Averland with it's gently rolling hills and plentiful farmlands. Even as he took in the view, Serra's eyes narrowed and she looked in the sky.

Southwards, coming from over the sea, there were a half dozen flying specks.

"What is it?"

"Griffons. Riders of Griffons, and they seem to be making for the town."

Erich sighed. His morning of peace had been ruined. He picked up his sword and started to walk towards the town. Serra finished eating and then followed after him.

* * *

 _ **I am somewhat awed to know that my story so far has been viewed over a thousand times. Thank you for the interest in the stuff I am writing.**_


	7. Chapter 7

**First Impressions**

* * *

Flying in Azeroth was significantly faster than travelling by foot or sea. While a portal to Southshore would have been better for the small party, the mages in the Wizard's Sanctums were of singularly little help. Every mage was busy helping with the Alliance war effort that was seemingly on the backfoot against a newly resurgent Horde. Adventurers and soldiers could easily find a portal to Darnassus where the night elves were hard pressed, or Dalaran, which was now neutral in the world wide war that had broken out. Instead the travellers after a few hours of haggling had decided to travel via the Gryphons reserved for the more eccentric and well off adventurers that appeared from time to time in Stormwind.

Despite the King's orders, the different Emissaries in Stormwind were loathed to leave the city to treat with strange humans that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere in the lower reaches of Lordaeron. Their time would be better spent co-ordinating the Alliance's strategies to win the war with speed. Instead the group that was now flying to Southshore was a group of lower level officers, and a few high elves that lived in Stormwind. Lieutenant Melrick chafed under the demands of his commission. Initially, the soldiers being gathered for battle rejoiced as the survivors from Southshore and Hillsbrad made it safely into stormwind. As far as he could tell, the war was going badly for the Alliance, stunned as they were by the Horde's numbers. They were some of the last survivors of Lordaeron like him, and it brought him much happiness to see them safe inside the walls of Stormwind.

His job was to reach out to these strange warriors who seemed to be good enough soldiers and convince them to attack the Forsaken. At the very least they would tie up the Banshee Queen's forces while the king sent reinforcements under General Garrick to slowly begin the push against the Undead. Initially part of Garrick's force that was being mustered in Stormwind even now, Melrick had been selected for this task because of his younger age. His party was to act as Liason between these soldiers and the Forces of Stormwind and the Alliance in the Eastern Kingdoms even as King Varian led the main thrust of the assault against the Horde in Kalimdor.

Accompanying him was the High Elf Caledra Dawnbreeze. He didn't know what she did exactly in the Petitioner's chamber, but she must doubtless be important to be sent on such a mission. It was their job to handle negotiations, while the two other soldiers and a priest from the Cathedral would be their bodyguards and healer.

The sea glistened below the Gryphons' wings as they slowly began to descend in the general direction of Southshore. From this distance, the town seemed to be remarkably normal. After the betrayal at the Wrathgate, Melrick had heard of second hand reports of the forsaken blighting the land in a manner similar to the scourge. It would be too much for him to see the remainder of Lordaeron be reduced to the level of the plaguelands. Far in the distance, he could make out the rough shapes of watergoing vessels abandoned at sea. It seemed that the strange warriors had a mundane way of reaching the shore at least.

As the town drew closer, the scars of the battle became more apparent. The farmlands around it seemed to have been abandoned, with most of the crops still standing in the fields. Some of the closest trees had been cut down, to make a small ring of woods that surrounded the once quaint town of Southshore. For such an unassuming place, it was of historic importance to the Alliance. This was the place where many years ago, on a morning similar to this one, the survivors of Stormwind found shelter from a brutal army that was bent on conquering the world. It was the ember that would spark the flame that was the Alliance. Losing the town would have dealt a hammer blow to the morale of the remnants of Lordaeron that still lived and fought under the banner of Varian Wrynn.

As the gryphons landed, Lieutenant Melrick slowly eased out of his saddle, careful not to ruffle his mount's feathers. The noble beasts were temperamental, and he would rather not be savaged by one as soon as he landed. Caledra had already slipped out of her saddle gracefully and was busy tying her hair in a knot. In contrast to everyone else who wore heavy plate armour emblazoned with the the signs of house Wrynn and Lordaeron, she wore far simpler armour. A chain shirt and chainmail leggings with leather boots that were great for travelling and much lighter.

The two soldiers meanwhile were struggling to pull down a Chest filled with gold from the King's treasury. For the next few minutes they, and eventually the Gryphon master calmed the gryphon down so that they could actually get the chest on the ground.

"Here we are." Melrick said to no one in particular.

"Yes, now let us find these warriors and be on our way. I have to return home." Caledra sounded slightly bored. Melrick supposed that living in stormwind for the past few years had probably made her distasteful of smaller frontier towns like this one.

Marshal Marcus Redpath was in command of the town. With any luck, he would know where this army was encamped. Looking for him turned out to be surprisingly easy. Most of the town had been abandoned, and the few soldiers present there largely patrolling the streets. For a town that had survived an attack by some of the best warriors that the forsaken had mustered, the soldiers of Southshore were quite at ease. They were quick to point party towards the tavern, telling them that the best rooms were empty and there was beer on the table. Marcus would eventually wind up there at the end of his day and they could arrange a meeting.

The tavern itself was similar to drinking holes scattered over the Eastern Kingdoms. A nice homely fire burned in the fireplace, and the place was full of off duty soldiers and militiamen. They had no problems renting out three rooms for a place to rest. Finding nothing to do while he waited for Marcus, Melrick quickly changed into more comfortable clothes and went down for a drink. Caledra was already sitting there, wearing the same armour she wore. He took a seat opposite to her before taking out the deed signed by no other than the King himself.

It was without doubt the most precious possession on their bodies. The crests of Stormwind and the alliance dotted the thick sheaf of parchment, and there were places for two signatures. One had been filled by an elaborate loopy hand, and the other was empty – for now.

The contract was relatively simple. The group of soldiers would be hired by the King for the duration of a year. They were to follow orders from field commanders assigned by the King or his equivalent from the different nations and races of the alliance. Payment would be one and a half thousand gold coins per month and spoils of war would not be taxed. It was standard stuff generally given by quartermasters to adventurers that had been conscripted by the Alliance. Part of Melrick doubted that the strange people would actually be worth this sort of money.

The rest of the morning passed in Melrick and Caledra making small talk. She used to be a ranger of Quel'Thalas before the third war. When the sunwell was destroyed, she and many other colleagues crossed the Thandol span for safer lands down south. Speaking fluent Thalassian, she easily found a job in the petitioner's chambers translating notes and documents to common.

"It is a boring job, but it pays the bills and lets me lead a comfortable if boring life in Stormwind." She finished.

Melrick was about to respond to her when a Sergeant in the uniform of the Southshore milita walked in. "Are you the ambassadors from Stormwind?" He asked.

"Yes, we are."

"Come with me please. The Marshal would like to meet with you right now. He is in the town hall with some of the soldiers."

The finishing their drinks, Melrick and Caledra followed the man out of the tavern and into the street. The town hall was a five minute walk from the inn towards the harbour.

"So, Sergeant. What do you make of these warriors that saved your town?"

The man positively gushed as the told them about how they had utterly crushed the Forsaken besieging the town.

"...and then when the Deathguard began to drop like flies, we knew that the impossible was about to happen. We were going to be be safe. I was ordered to return to the town and start loading the civilians on to the ships in the quay. Every one from the children to the greybeards were relieved. We had given up hope a long time ago. Most people thought they were dreaming even as they got on to the ships with their meagre belongings. The light blessed us with those soldiers appearing out of the mist that day."

From what Melrick could gather, the soldiers had taken on an almost mythic level of adoration from the forces stationed at Southshore. While it was to be expected to be succoured by a strange army would win them many favours with the people of the town, the level of respect and even worshipfulness that the soldiers had was bizarre. On the other hand, he hadn't been here when all their hope was gone and they had been saved from certain death and worse.

* * *

Erich sat at a bench, next to Serra, slowly clutching his hat. A feather, missing from there was firmly in the hands of serra, next to a sharpened letter opener and her staff. She was casting spells, and he distrusted that. When they had entered the town, they were nearly mobbed by the soldiers. They spoke in a tongue that he could not begin to comprehend. From what he saw of the Mage, it seemed that she didn't either. They had been escorted into what seemed like a hall where they had had drinks and food thrust upon them with several pats on the back and smiles. He was slowly finishing the last of the drink to make magic tolerable.

It didn't work.

Serra's eyes stopped glowing and her voice changed to normal. "There. It is done."

"What is done?"

"When you write something with this quill, it will project your thoughts onto a piece of parchment in a manner that can be read by any sapient being. I suppose it takes care of our language issue rather elegantly, don't you think?"

"Write out our thoughts? What are you thinking? This is the worst idea I have ever heard!"

"Oh, don't fret, human. As long as you stay focused on getting your point across, you should do fine. You can stay focused on one thought though, right?" A mocking question, or maybe not.

She smiled and continued. "Here try it." The hall was filled with paper and Serra placed one in front of him.

His mind screaming that this was a bad idea, Erich filled the quill with ink and started to make scribbles. After a good minute, he stopped and passed the paper over to her.

"Here, read it. I think you can understand chicken scratches."

She took the piece of paper and began to read.

"I am drunk. The weather outside is nice. This room is stuffy. My head hurts. I wish the elf was - " Her face reddened and she uttered a slight scream.

"What did I write?"

"You wish me out of my clothes and on your lap? What sort of an animal are you?"

Erich groaned. Myrmidia's blessings. Testing this out when his wits was scattered was a bad idea. "I can explain?"

"Explain? EXPLAIN? What is there to explain? You want me out of my clothes and on your lap? You better have a good explanation." The slight tinge of scarlet on her cheek and her anger made her all the more attractive.

"Well, for once, you are wearing MY clothes. I want them back. Why don't you conjure some clothes up on your own?"

"How do you think magic works you filthy Mon'keigh?"

"I don't know. It's magic. You wave your hands, your eyes glow and things happen."

"Isha save me. Stuck here with only a pig for company."

"Hey, that is rather rude."

"What about this part of sitting on your lap caressing you?"

"I am drunk. You are beyond attractive. I have nothing better to do." He made a clean breast of it. There was nothing more to it. Erich hoped that he wouldn't get turned into a newt, and continued. "Well, it seems your magic works."

"Oh, it does, doesn't it. Human? You would like if I gave you a pat on the head for stating that? Maybe a slight caress on your cheek?"

"You are really overstating a drunken ramble lady. I wouldn't dare think the same thing when I am sober."

"You disgusting animal. I had thought better, but you are just the same?"

"Wait, what had you thought of me?"

"I – I don't know what I thought of you."

"How about you write it on this here piece of parchment?" He handed out the quill to her.

With daggers in her eyes, and eyeing him with a stare that would have frozen a lake solid, she wrote something on the paper and passed it back to him.

He read it for a moment and chuckled. Then he began to read aloud what she wrote in a sing-song voice.

"This human is a disgusting drunken sot. He wants to see me naked and on his lap like the filthy beast that he is. It is hard to reconcile this waste of life with the quiet and somewhat intelligent creature that he is while sober. In the midst of battle, he is something far more than the drunken mess he is right now. I hate associating with him. I would much rather hear the thoughts of the focused Captain that leads his men to victory instead of the drunken mess that rambles about how he would like to see me naked."

The daggers in her eyes had sharpened while Erich was reading. There was something about the scene that caused him to sober up somewhat.

"Oh, so I am something else other than a drunken sot that wants you naked on my lap eh?"

"What is wrong with you human? I have seen you in battle. Against the fish creatures you were a completely different person. Calm, collected and instinctively doing the right thing. And here you are, a mess of a person wanting to mate with your employer after stripping her naked."

"No, no no NO!" He slammed his fist on the table. Startled by the sound Serra sat up straight. "You want to know why I spend time drinking? Its because this is all that I have left. All my heritage, all my endeavours to be a better person outside the battle field fall flat. I have lost the woman I loved, the birthright that would have been mine, my rightful place in among the blue blooded elite of the Empire, my father's hopes

What do you know of living life in the shadows of greater things, knowing that no matter how hard you try, you will never be as good as those that came before you? All my life, I have lived in the shadows of my ancestors. They rode with Sigmar to save the Empire at the battle of Blackfire Pass two and a half millenia ago as the best warriors in their tribes. Everything I have ever done has been judged by my betters and I have been found wanting. Even in my dreams their faces look down upon me, measuring my worth and calling we unworthy Every thing I did while growing up, from trying to ride a horse, to learning how to use a sword with the proper form has been mediocre at best and an abysmal shameful failure at worst. The only thing I am good at is fighting, and even then I am a mediocre fighter at best. You could just as easily run me through with my own sword and it would not even be an hard enough to break a sweat over.

Erich, you are supposed to hold the lance this way. Erich, you lack the skill of your ancestors. Erich, you are too lanky to be a proper Knight of the Empire. Erich, you lack the social skills to be my match, I am afraid this is goodbye. Erich, you stain the honour of Solland with your very presence. Herr Von Peiper, I am disappointed in the fact that you and your men survived the battle and want your gold.

Is it too much for me to enjoy a drink and the privacy of my own thoughts in peace? I guess not. Drink is the last bastion of the person I am now, warped and twisted by my own experience in a world that wants me dead. I will not apologise to you for my thoughts. I have fought and clawed and cried my way to earn the right to think what I think."

Erich felt exhausted after his rant. Serra egging him on had opened a part of him that he had always known existed, but had come face to face with. In the eyes of his father and the few remaining Sollander Nobles, he was a failure. Instead of the raw valour of the land, he had taken on the cold hearted calculating nature of career soldiers. His lanky frame meant that he would lose in duels against all but the most weedy of squires. Being a Dog of War meant that his men would be sent to the thick of battle and be expected to die as a cost saving measure. The child in him that read stories of noble heroes and vicious monsters railed at the unfairness of it all. The worldly man knew that there was only the thinnest of lines dividing the two.

Serra was about to reply when the the door to the hall they were in opened and three people walked in.

Erich stared at them bleary eyed. The rant had made him thirsty and he was all out of drink. One of them was a man he had seen during the battle. Heavily armed in plate that would have shamed a Knight of the empire, the man nevertheless wore no helmet. His amour was dusty and dinted still. He had been patrolling ever since the siege had broken.

In contrast the two other people wore armour that was burnished and brightly polished. The plate and chain gleamed in the sunlight coming from the window. Far more ornate than the plate worn by the Sergeant, it made Erich look like a pauper in comparison.

Interestingly enough, the woman was an Elf. That much was clear from her unnatural gait and posture. Much like Serra, her body seemed like a spring, tightly coiled and about to spring forth. The only feature that made her stand out from Serra was her ears. Erich knew that elves had pointed ears, but this elf in particular had ears that were thrice as big. It almost looked comical in contrast.

Serra was busy studying the elf. Her attention immediately went to the ears of this newcomer. They were thrice as big as hers. In all her life, she had never seen something so strange. The similarity of posture with her kin made her ears stand out all the more. A part of her wanted to tug the ears of the Strange elf, to see if they would come off. They were grotesque.

Erich pointed them to the on the other side of the table. Two of them sat down while the person in the dinted armour left. Before he did he waved at Erich, and got a thumbs up in return. His rant seemed to have sobered him up and brought his eyes back into focus. She had noticed his agitation when he ranted about the injustices done to him in his short life. Despite herself, she couldn't help but feel bad for the human. She knew something of living in the shadows of the past. It was something that the High elves of Ulthuan had been living in for millenia.

The other human began to speak. She heard the words that came out. Despite the unintelligible tongue she slowly began to understand the man's intent. His cadences and slow staccato meant that he was reciting something formal. Erich let the man finish before he held up his hand. Taking the enchanted quill, he wrote something on a fresh sheaf of parchment before passing it to the man sitting opposite to him. The man read it and passed it to his associate. The two of them stared at the paper for a minute before starting to speak.

Erich shook his head and took out a fresh piece of paper. He passed the blank piece of parchment to the man and gave him a quill, asking him to scribble. The man did so presently, his eyes widening with shock as the quill moved across the sheaf of paper seemingly on it's own. The Elf's eye glittered as she saw what he was writing. Even as the man finished, Erich nearly snatched the paper from him. His grey eyes glittered with amusement as he finished reading whatever the man had to wrote and he passed the paper to Serra to read.

It said. "This can't be the heroes that saved Southshore. Where is their army? The man seems hungover and needs a bed. I wish I was back with the army preparing to return to Lordaeron. Also, why is the Half-Elf staring at Caledra with daggers in her eyes?" Even as Serra parsed what the man had written, Erich was busy writing something on a piece of paper. His eyes were focused even as he scribbled effortlessly on to the paper. His discharge of thoughts finished, he passed the paper on to her.

It said. "Appearances can often be deceiving. Ask the people of this town who saved them from the living dead. You shall have your answer."

Serra passed the paper over to the elf called Caledra without writing down her thoughts. Something rankled in her mind. The human had called her a half-elf. She had half a mind to turn him into a fine paste on the floor of the hall then and there. Thankfully for her, Erich seemed to have his brain in one coherent piece.

The human took a fresh piece of paper and began to scribble something. Then he passed it to Erich, who in turn passed it on to her.

It said. "Very well. We would like to see this army of yours before we make any further decision."

Erich wrote, "Give me a good reason why you want to see my forces."

The man replied "Because we have the money to hire you and your men. We are at war, and trained soldiers are hard to come by."

"Let us return, your Ladyship. Our new business associates want to see the services I am offering. They seem to be smarter buyers than you." He got up, taking care to put the enchanted quill in his cap.

* * *

Melrick was shaken by the size of the force that was encamped just outside Southshore. To say it was an army would not have been wrong. Close to six hundred men must have been encamped there. Compared to most encampments of the Alliance, this seemed to be far better laid out. Two layers of palisades angled outward would be enough to break up an assault by the most determined Orc or Tauren warband. Crossbowmen and heavily armed halberdiers patrolled the inner part of the settlement while most soldiers lay about in ordered groups with their weapons close at hand. It would take scarcely an hour for the entire army to begin marching. In contrast, the grand army being assembled at Stormwind would need a week to take provisions and supplies for the journey alone, and it was scarcely thrice at big as this one. Also, they had annihilated some of the most dangerous Forsaken forces that operated in Hillsbrad. Many adventurers had been slain on raids against the forsaken, and even during the assault on the Undercity, the Deathguard had fought with a tenacity that had overwhelmed all but the most hardened of adventurers and soldiers of the Alliance.

This was beyond impressive. This was magnificent. The man beckoned him to a tent – slightly bigger than the rest – that had a single standard - now rapidly growing popular in murmured whispers and rumours in Stormwind – A banner with a raised sword standing under a sunburst.

There were three other men in the tent when Melrick entered. He nearly froze when he saw the first one. That hair, that face. For a moment, he thought he had seen Prince Arthas return from the dead. No, it could not be. He had died at Icecrown citadel, by the power of the holy light. The traitor prince who had sold his kingdom out was dead. This facsimile would help take back the land from the restless dead that lingered.

The other two were less interesting in comparison. One was an older man who looked like he was about to fall asleep, while the other one had a beard like a dwarf and was gruff enough to be an attraction at the Darkmoon faire.

The leader said something, causing all three of them to get up. While the words were foreign to Melrick, the intent behind it seemed to be clear. All three were largely smiling. A few jokes here and there, and that was it.

The leader wrote something with his enchanted quill, showing it to his men and the half elf. They nodded their assent. Then he passed it on to Melrick.

The note said. "The gentleman and the lady are interested in purchasing our services in return for gold. If you gentlemen would have no problem, I would be happy to accept their contract."

Melrick wrote. "I would be happy to offer you a contract on behalf of the king."

The rest of the afternoon passed in reasonable negotiations. The mercenaries wanted several thousand pieces of gold each month. In the end Melrick was able to negotiate down to two thousand gold coins and any spoils of war they would be able to gather in the course of their service, along with free lodging in any Alliance city that would be garrisoned during war time.

They spent the night drinking and feasting. Sergeant Hartman and the rest of the town was more than happy to provide the soldiers with provisions. Being a port town, Southshore had enough provisions to feed an army for months.

He woke up the next day his head pounding. The leader was the only person remaining, counting out the coins that Melrick's men had sent over over the night before. The man was nothing if thorough. It took a remarkable amount of self restraint to apportion money the morning after wild debauchery.

He sat next to the man – Erich von Peiper – he remembered from the contract that had been signed.

He borrowed the enchanted quill and wrote a few words, or rather, he guided his thoughts in a less embarrassing manner.

* * *

Erich read the paper the man had written. It was nothing important. Apart from groaning about his hangover, the man had told him that within a week a larger army would be landing in Southshore, and together they were to push up north and bring the battle to the dead. There was a town, a day's march from here, named Tarren Mill, which was the primary hub of the dead in the region.

Erich digested the information. A day's march north. Rodrigo had already left before he had returned to thrash out the new contract. If the town was lightly held, he could just as easily sack it as an auspicious start to this new contract. This land was brimming with potential for enterprising men like him to carve out a bloody and gold laden path or at the very least make enough money to retire like and live life like an eccentric noble like those in the richer quarters of Altdorf and Nuln.

The man beckoned him again. Where was his companion, his note asked. The last Erich recalled was Serra trying to strike up a conversation with the elf, Caledra. The two of them had left to go to her tent. That was what he told the man. Myrmidia's spear, this was getting difficult, focusing on one thought at a time. It might just be safer to learn the language here. It would take time, but at least Erich would have control on what he said, rather than what he thought.

It was at this moment that Serra entered, arm in arm with the other elf. This close to each other, Erich had a moment to appreciate their differences. Their figures, poise and gait were nearly identical for the most part. A quiet spring in their step that reminded Erich of cats waiting to pounce. At the same time, their differences stood out strikingly. Caledra's ears were at least thrice as long as Serra's. They went above and beyond her head before tapering off like the wings of a bird. Serra in contrast looked rather ordinary.

The other elf ran up to the man and whispered something in his ear. Serra smiled coldly at that exchange. Erich had the feeling that she could understand the conversation just as well as those two.

The man and the elf-woman bowed before leaving him, the woman trying to keep as far away from Serra as she could. She watched them leave with faint amusement.

After they had left, she sat down facing him, her smug smile suggesting that she had done something worth bragging about.

Erich waited patiently for a moment before saying, " So, I assume you have mastered whatever language they speak in a day?"

Serra was grinning right now. She helped herself to a swig of rum from Erich's bottle before opening her mouth to speak. " _Language_ is nought but the sounds and inflections sentient beings use to communicate with each other. It is rather trifling to learn a new tongue, if one knows what one is doing."

"So you didn't learn a language then?" Her eyes sharpened at that retort. For a centuries old being that thought he was little better than a monkey, Serra was quite easy to rile up. At least this morning would be entertaining if nothing else.

"No, I learned two." She replied, her face returning to a smug state.

Erich had to collect his thoughts. She had learned _two_ languages? His incredulity must have been showing on his face as Serra continued

"What is the matter human? Too scared of learning a new form of babble?"

"No, no, absolutely not. I was just marvelling at the state of our elven superiors, who can master two languages after spending the night with their larger eared kin."

"Very droll, master Erich, perhaps you would have liked to watch what I did with Caledra Dawnbreeze? Perhaps you are more of a peeper yes?"

"Depends on what I am looking at. So, what did you learn?" He wasn't sure if Serra was teasing him or it was just her acting smug like high elves were wont to do.

"The the humans here speak a language that they imaginatively have titled common. It is not too different from the gibberish that the Norscan tribes yell, but seems to have a much larger vocabulary. You see, once people start becoming civilised, they often need more words to describe the things they need."

"Yes, fascinating. I would love to listen to you pontificating for hours about how languages evolve, but I do not of millennia of living left to do. If you could be more to the point, I would be very glad of what you managed to find out."

With a petulant huff that reminded Erich of noble born women not getting their way, she continued. "The other language spoken by the woman is called Thalassian. It is an ancient language, almost as old as Eltharin, and seems to have developed among similar lines. It is surprisingly simple to use and even you could grasp the basics of it in a few weeks."

"So, did you find out where we are?"

She paused for a moment, a faint crease of worry appearing on her brow. "No, I did not. I was too busy doing other things to know about the particulars. However, I can speak these two languages fluently enough to act as your interpreter."

"Thank you for doing this."

"I did not say I was doing it for free. I want to get full payment for my services."

"And what services would those be?"

"Look around you human. We are in a strange land, and I spent a large part of my money hiring you. You already know what I am capable of. I am also willing to act as your translator for no extra charge."

"How much are are you charging?"

"The same amount of salary you draw."

Erich snorted at that. Either the elf had very high opinions of herself or he was looking at a serious pay cut. He said as much. "Listen, your ladyship. Rodrigo, Sven, Luigi, and the rest of the boys have been fighting with me for a decade. We have been through wars together. I trust them enough not to abscond with my money the first chance they get. You, I have known for a little more than five weeks, and you have led me here. A place with civilised Norscans," He snorted at that phrase, " and floppy eared elves."

"And can Rodrigo, Luigi, Sven, and the rest of your boys wither entire armies to ash with magic? Can they summon the very spirits of the water to drown their enemies in a tidal wave? Can any of them speak the language of these parts that I can? You need me, and I need your money. It will be an honest business agreement."

Erich nodded. A mage that powerful would be an asset beyond compare for the Regiment. "Very well, I will get the ledger."

After a few minutes of rummaging through his chest, he produced a dusty old tome.

"Write your name and sign here." An elegantly written signature introduced Serra as the chief magical expert of the company

"Now shake my hand." She did.

"I want my payment. Now."

"Fine, I will get it. And I suppose you will be wanting breakfast here as well?" When she did not respond to the jibe, Erich went back to his pay chest to pay her her weekly wage.

* * *

Serra watched the human rummage in his pay chest to pay her the money. For all appearances she had joined the company temporarily. Only she knew the danger they were in. Getting information out of Caledra had been easy, if long, but the implications had been earth shattering. No one but her knew where they were, and the little Serra knew terrified her. This wasn't the world they were from at all. It would seem that the spell she had cast on the ship had done more than protect them from the storm. It had displaced them from the world, carrying the ships on a tide of pure magic from the Aether, before leaving them in this strange new world.

And what a world it was. A world where humans elves and dwarfs lived together as friends and allies. A world with a history that seemed to dwarf those of Ulthuan and even the Old ones. And yet, a world at war, So different from home, yet so similar that they had all fit in nearly perfectly. They elf Caledra had a name for had a single name name for it, a name that would haunt Serra's dreams for years to come.

Azeroth.

* * *

 **Solarblaster: Erich is a bit of an underachiever compared to his more illustrious forefathers. I will explain more in later chapters. And yes, his heritage is Sollander.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Plunder and Pillage**

* * *

 _Erich stood in the gloom of the setting sun. Around him were hazy indistinct shapes of soldiers formed up in a stationary square. From his left, captain Valdos' voice rang out, crying an alarm. "Ware, the beastmen attack once more."_

 _In response the shapes around him shifted. Erich didn't need to even look at them now. The sounds were clear. They were marching in a dense, thickly packed line, awaiting the clash of arms that was now inevitable. Over on the treeline, a tumult raged. Trees and branches shook as the distant din of a huge mass of moving bodies moving was heard. A few of the greener troops were praying even as they would hold their pikes. Two hundred paces from them, the dark forest lurked._

 _The forests of the Old World held a peculiar, primeaval fear for humanity. No matter where man built his cities, the forests would stare. There was a sense of hate beyond reckoning in the trees. No matter how often Taal or Rhya were appeased, the forest would whisper, promising murder and worse to the humans that dared to encroach upon it. Even the Amber and Jade wizards, who grew close to the forests and the trees began to shun their humanity more and more. Far more wild than any other wizards, they would hate their very humanity as they grew older. The forests of the Reikwald and the Drakwald were older than the oldest of Humanity's settlements in the empire, perhaps older than humanity itself. They had been there before the humans had even crossed into the empire from the distant east. The trees rested comfortable in their knowledge that one day the fleshy interlopers and their hated stone walls would be dust and mulch to feed them. To this hasten they belched forth horrors beyond number with frightening regularity. Even in the midst of an army, Erich's spine tingled as he looked upon the forest. Not for the first time, he wished he was in Averland._

 _Suddenly the din of the moving bodies was replaced with a roar. From the dark eaves of the forest they emerged. The beastmen warherd. Thousands of the creatures shouting their cries in voices that were bestial and terrifyingly human at the same time. The smaller creatures stood back, waiting to follow their bigger kin into the the forefront of the charge was an entire line of Minotaurs. There must have been two dozen of them. The stink of someone pissing themselves with fear assailed Erich. For a moment he wondered who that poor fellow was. No one dared to crack a joke. Their eyes were fixed on the hulking mass of pure muscle powered by hate that barreled towards them. The ground slowly began to quake as the awesome might of the charge bore down upon the braced line._

 _Then suddenly a roar filled the air. Over their heads the sound of multiple projectiles moving faster than the eye could see whizzed, overpowering their sense of hearing. The acrid smell of blackpowder hung in the air for a moment and then dissipated, replaced by the smell of sweat, and other bodily fluids._

 _The charging line of beastmen buckled as the cannonballs went through them carving out bloody gouges. At least four of the minotaurs went down from what Erich could see, even their muscles and hate no match for Nuln forged blackpowder. The smaller creatures stopped. Their charge momentarily halted by confusion and panic. No such thing for the Minotaurs. Without even noticing the cannonade, the beasts kept running at the line. After a moment of panic, the rest of the warherd followed them cowed down by the rage emanating from the beasts._

 _Another moment, and another cannonade from the guns of Nuln. This close, the shots were well aimed, and nearly a dozen of the hulking monstrosities went down. A weak cheer rose through the line. The shadowy soldiers around Erich tightened their grips on their pikes nonetheless. They knew the barreling monsters hand run clear of the artillery's line of fire. The cannons would not fire at the charging creatures. Instead, their Crossbowmen. safelyin the rear now opened up on the creatures at the front. In contrast to the cannons, the quarrels from tilean and imperial crossbows did very little to dissuade the hulking beastmen. One went down, with a lucky shot to the eye, but the others only grew madder with their injuries. Soldiers had a name for this phenomenon. Bloodgreed it was called._

 _Creatures of Chaos such as the Beastmen seethed for the blood of humans. They would launch themselves into a frenzy in the midst of battle, clawing and hacking at the enemy trying to bring them down so that they could feast on their flesh. The very sight was enough to unnerve untrained soldiers. Many a state troop company had fled the horrifying visage only to be cut down by scores of other beastmen. It took a lot of effort to stand one's ground and fight the things off. Yet that way lay the only chance of survival they would have._

 _"BRACE" came the command from down the line. The creatures were now close enough that Erich could see the bloodshot colour of their eyes. Eight or so terrifying creatures, giant bulls that walked in a parody of men charged towards their formation. The shadow-men ahead of him pointed their pikes outward. A wall of pointy death would deal serious damage to anything that ran into it, using their own momentum against them. Erich's hand went to his scabbard. The sword felt both alien and yet familiar to him. It was his birthright to wield this ancient hallowed blade. It's weight felt right in his hands._

 _With a blood crazed roar Minotaurs charged into the ranks of the arrayed pikemen, scattering men in different directions. All but one of the minotaurs stopped and slowly flailed before dying. Braced pikemen had torn them to bloody shreds._

 _Above them, the cannons opened fire once again, scattering the beastmen before they could exploit the breach in the line. Erich knew what would happen. The breach in the line would be plugged in and they would slowly march forward on the offensive._

 _Even as that thought crossed his mind, the final beastman waded through the line, scattering tileans and imperials in it's wake. It stood before Erich, sizing him up before opening it's mouth. He expected a blood curdling bellow from the monstrosity as it prepared to gore him. Instead opened it's mouth to say,_ "Signor Erich, wake up, you are going to miss breakfast."

* * *

Erich woke up with a start. Rodrigo was standing over him. The smouldering remnants of the Tarren Mill chapel burned in the distance, bringing an eerie light to the early morning. The sun was not up yet. But the east was turning bright ever so slowly while the stars shone in the sky.

"Eh, why are you waking me up now?" Erich liked to sleep after a hard day's looting and sacking. No one could reasonably argue to the contrary. They had certainly done that.

That evening after the new contract had been signed, Rodrigo had come back from reconnoitring from the north. There was an abandoned town, much like Southshore that was largely purged of the dead. A few dozen undead abominations were all that remained between them and the town. The battle as it was was pitifully short. The defenders had made to fire bows at the approaching force in the early light of dawn. It was bad enough light for shooting, and even worse if your eyes had largely melted. Rodrigo and Littorio had easily killed the dead all over again. The village seemed empty until a nasty surprise had popped up. A necromancer had appeared as if by magic in the centre of the village. Challenging Erich's forces, the man had proceeded to raise hundreds – perhaps thousands - of corpses in front of their very eyes.

Hardened soldiers as they were, a murmur of panic began to break out in the lines. Erich's blood had begun to run cold. They would easily be surrounded by a horde of ravening corpses and skeletons. It was at this moment that Serra had earned her keep.

Everyone had been unanimous until this point that recruiting an Elf Mage was a bad idea. Elves were capricious creatures that would disappear whenever the going started to be tough. In this way they were the polar opposite of the stubborn but loyal dwarfs. Serra however had engaged in a magical duel with the necromancer, trading spell for spell, negating the magics that bound the raised corpses. Even as the entire company watched her destroy his minions in an effortless manner, she had raised her staff before casting a chilling spell. A magical missile had erupted from her staff, hitting the necromancer squarely in it's body. An awful yell had shattered the murmuring noise of hundreds of men – and thousands of – corpses milling about, destroying the necromancer utterly.

Slack jawed, nearly six hundred men had gaped at her before she took a polite bow as if this was a masque she had put on for the entertainment of the audience. "Aren't we going to loot the town?" She asked conversationally.

The entire wall of hostility that had been building against Serra had crumbled almost instantaneously. Faced with the prospect of free loot, the men nearly clambered over each other in haste to turn the town inside out. Not that they had needed much help. It seemed that the dead were terrible at maintaining towns. Ramshackle buildings were nearly torn to the ground as men found trinkets and rings lying in the corpses lying inside them. Hans and his halberdiers had found a large vault in the chapel, filled with a month's worth of salary for the entire company. In the course of a single battle, Serra had gone from a reviled elf witch to a nearly indispensable part of Von Peiper's Regiment.

"The elf was quite the showman wasn't she?" Rodrigo chuckled. His distrust of her had almost disappeared. Even Phillip didn't mind her too much any more. To the would-be Warrior priest, undeath was an abomination, and anything that destroyed the dead was worth trusting. Even if that thing was an She-elf witch.

"Yes, She was. I suppose that is to be expected. Who ever heard of an humble elf?" Erich replied The two men chuckled at that. The elves, whether they be High, Dark or Wood, were known for their arrogance and maddening vanity. Serra in particular could make current reigning Elector Countess of Nuln look like a shy village lass without effort.

"Still, I am glad that she is on our side. I would not want to be facing off against her." That much was true. A powerful mage was more than capable of turning a battle on their own. It was great if they were on the right side of the battle line, but if Serra would have been opposing them, Erich would have taken the money and run as fast as the company could march without losing too many stragglers.

"Well Signor, what do we do now?"

"Round the men up. We have tarried here too long. The boys are enjoying their plunder for now but the longer we stay here, the higher the chances are of us being attacked. We need to be gone by noon."Erich did not like the look of the foothills of the mountain range that seemed awfully close by. Mountains would do a great job of concealing large numbers of enemy forces on the march. Even now they seemed awfully foreboding.

"The men will need to rest a while."

"Yes, which is why we are marching around noon. Tell everyone that stragglers are going to be left behind. We are not in Tilea any more. I want as little lolly-gagging as possible."

Their walk during the conversation had taken them right into the center of town. The only patch avoided by the men was the spot at which the Necromancer had met his end. Serra's magic was certainly potent from what Erich could say. A skull and a heap of ash were what that remained of the dark wizard. Erich scooped the skull up and put it in his satchel. Some of the men had managed to tear down a banner from the only standing building in the town. They were now busy setting fire to it.

As a response to Rodrigo's quizzical look, Erich merely said. "What better way to prove that we sacked the town than bringing back the head of the resident Corpsemongerer and it's banners?"

"What a strange land this is signor. We have to bring back proof of our deeds. Why can no one trust our sense of honour?" Rodrigo said with a straight face. Meanwhile Erich doubled over laughing.

"Would you trust a fine company of men such as ours on our words alone?"

"With my life Signor? Always."

"With your money?"

"Never."

* * *

After finishing his breakfast, Erich went back to sleep. In a few short hours they would be marching back. This was certainly an auspicious start to the campaign. Thankfully, this time his sleep was not disturbed by talking beastmen and other assorted nightmares from his past. As it was, he woke up feeling a bit stiff around his neck and with the realisation that he had drooled over his cheek in his sleep. Even that could not dampen his spirits. They were making money hand over fist. Now they needed was good food, wine and women.

The march back to Southshore would take them an entire day. Generally soldiers on the march were tired and glum. The end of a battle invariably meant that friends and comrades would end up dead. This on the other hand was a one sides onslaught. The spirit of the company was as high as could be. They had started their war perfectly. Laden with loot and trinkets, the company practically ran back to the town to spend their newly acquired gold on more transient pleasures. In the hand of less experienced underlings, they might even have come apart. Fortunately, the Sergeants knew how to keep their men in line. Even now Rodrigo's men were spread out around the retreating column, keeping their eyes out for any approaching foes. Erich himself walked at the head of the column listening to the song being played by rudi and the drummers. It was a light hearted tilean song about gold and sweethearts that the line eventually picked up began singing as they marched. There was something in the air about this place that made the men giddy.

* * *

Caledra was in a panic. She had decided to stay behind and wait for Melrick to deliver the news about the successful business contract with the Von Peiper Regiment to Stormwind. Her job was to ensure that they did not run off with the money. Of course, when she woke up the following day, exhausted with the ordeal with the half elf sorceress, the news that Sergeant Hartman had brought about them packing their camps and leaving hit her with all the force of a charging tauren. Scarcely had the taken the money, the scum straight up and disappeared. Briefly she had considered tracking them. Half a century of being a ranger had taught her to follow the trail of forest trolls through the boughs of Quel'Thalas. A blundering army of humans would not be too difficult to track through the lowlands of southern Lordaeron.

What stayed her hand was the fact that she was now an emissary of Stormwind as far as the strange human soldiers were concerned. She had the problem of ensuring that they followed General Garrick's orders in the field while making sure that the town of Southshore was held until he could sail with his expedition north. From the little she had been told, their plan was to drive the forsaken permanently out of the area around Lordamere lake and if possible take the battle into the hinterlands of the Undercity. This force of mercenaries was to be vital for those tasks. The second hand reports she had been collecting from the Southshore and Hillsbrad militia seemed to speak extremely highly of their combat prowess.

Most of these reports were largely superfluous. Being part time soldiers, the men and women of the Southshore and Hillsbrad militia could only speak very vaguely of how the Regiment fought. It seemed that they fought with long spears and pikes and simply waited for the Forsaken to charge into their prepared spear wall after cutting them off from both Tarren Mill and Silverpine forest. To Caledra it seemed that it was a lack of the Forsaken forces tactical acumen that had caused them the loss instead of any skill on behalf of the relieving army.

She needed to speak with someone higher up the chain. That morning she had managed to arrange an interview with Marshal Redpath, the commander of the Southshore garrison. Being the highest ranking military official in the area and an active participant of the battle, his thoughts and opinions on this Mercenary Regiment would be of importance to the report she was writing. Now the interview was the last thing on her mind as the entire regiment had straight up broken camp and disappeared!

She was waiting in the tavern for Marshal Redpath while trying to formulate a plan. The little she had seen of their tracks indicated that they had decided to march northwards, towards tarren mill. She could not put it past the forsaken to employ double agents. Maybe the entire siege break of Southshore had been an elaborate ruse by the Forsaken. Sylvanas Windrunner led the forsaken and the former Ranger-General was extremely intelligent in life. Death had made her more ruthless, especially with her underlings. Caledra had compiled reports from the Silver Covenant regarding the actions of the Forsaken. The Forsaken had happily contaminated large parts of their encampments with blight, simply to better hold ground against the Alliance. While the Horde blamed the Betrayal at the Wrathgate on the rogue elements in the Forsaken ranks, to Caledra's mind there were no doubts that Sylvanas had orchestrated the whole charade just so she could claim control of the Forsaken.

A being capable of this level of subterfuge was more than capable of luring an entire alliance army, destroying it and then raising the corpses to further bolster her power with the undead remnants of an entire alliance army.

She was broken out of her dark reverie by the sound of a man sitting opposite to her. The weather beaten face of Marshal Redpath stared at her, expecting a greeting and a question. Caledra sighed before finishing her drink. She had to be objective. Baseless speculation was not going to get her anywhere. She said. "Marshal Redpath. Thank you for speaking to me."

"Yes, what do you want to speak to me about?"

"I am compiling reports for my superiors regarding the performance of this Mercenary Army that seems to have rescued you from the Forsaken offensive. I would like to ask you some questions regarding their effectiveness, ways of fighting and their perceived benefits for the Alliance."

"They did."

"I am sorry, they did what?" Caledra began to write down the exchange to keep everything official. In her new job, it was a good idea to catalogue every piece of information and have it countersigned when necessary.

"They saved us. Rescued us, crushed the army of the Undead that had besieged us. There is absolutely no doubt that this Mercenary Regiment was the one that crushed the Forsaken offensive that was about to take Southshore."

Caledra made sure to write down every word. Interesting, everyone was convinced that it was the Mercenaries that had saved the town.

"I see. Can you tell me the details about _how_ they saved the town? The reports of your men have been scattered all over the place. Everything from the light smiting down the wicked undead to the militia alone riding through the Forsaken ranks like they were the Brotherhood of the Horse. I would like to know how you were able to survive this – ordeal." As good a word as any.

Marshal Redpath's drink had arrived. He took a long swig from his tankard, with the foam sticking to his moustache. Then he sighed. "I do not know where to begin. I was looking for my deputy when I first saw them. Or rather heard them. The bridge on the outskirts of town had long been abandoned by our patrols. As a result, gnolls and murlocs were starting to encroach the farmlands around the town."

"We were always a little low on number so we used to hire adventurers to thin out the herd – as it were. The problems began when the war on the Lich King started. The scourge invasion hit us hard, forcing us to reduce our patrols and primarily defend the settlement. The ruined tower we used to keep watch on Tarren mill and the surrounding lands was abandoned as well."

"Now a month and a half ago, we were considering sending out new patrols. To this extent we managed to retake the tower and establish a watch there. The forsaken attacked there first and drove us out."

Caledra interjected. "Why didn't you send a report to Stormwind?"

"We used to. Ever since Southshore became part of Stormwind, I have been sending regular reports to the Keep. They sent Lieutenant Ornielle over to assess the situation. He was of the opinion that minor skirmishes should stay just that."

"So you stopped reporting about these skirmishes to Stormwind."

"It became part of life. Sometimes we would control the tower, and sometimes we would be driven out. It only became a problem this past month." Redpath paused to take another swig from his mug, fortifying the foam on his moustache. Then, he continued. "I was considering sending a report about this latest skirmish since it was a new one in a long time, but this was something different. A couple of days after that, we began to see a stream of soldiers and civilians coming towards the town from the outying villages and farms. It seemed that there was a general attack on the Hillsbrad region. I asked for ships to evacuate us as our position was rapidly becoming untenable. Two weeks ago, the bulk of their forces arrived and pinned us in the town."

Caledra clucked her tongue. Despite it's strategic importance Southshore was distant from the war efforts. The ongoing cataclysm had nearly destroyed the Alliance's strategic competence. Southshore was too far away to be bothered, but the King at least had taken the initiative to save the trapped populace.

"It began to get worse. The Dark Rangers began to keep us pinned down, and away from the walls. I must have lost a dozen or more men to their arrows before we were forced to abandon the lookout.

The day before the siege lifted, we were at the end of our tether. I could not allow thousands of people to board the ships. We didn't have the numbers to manage such a feat and defend the town itself. Instead we waited for the hammer to drop. To make matters worse, there was a fog coming from the river itself that hid the bridge."

"Does the river fog often this time of the year?" This was an interesting lead.

"Honestly, I can't seem to recall. It fogs as the year gets colder, but the snows are still months away. However that was the least of our worries. Several of the men had given over to despair and were drinking themselves silly. Morale was on the verge of evaporating when we were rescued."

Throughout the next hour, Caledra dutifully recorded whatever it was Marcus Redpath had to say. Interestingly enough, his assessment was far more down to earth than the more fanciful descriptions of the soldiers under his command. The Mercenaries were incredibly disciplined. From what he had observed they had marched behind the Forsaken army well within the range of arrows and bolts without wavering or breaking their lines to charge, instead forming up and fighting them as a coherent hole. Although some of the later descriptions of their fighting seemed a lot more fanciful.

Warriors and soldiers knew how to trust their instincts. To defend themselves in the press of combat. When all reason had fled in the din of battle, it was the raw, _animal_ instinct that preserved life and hope. Earlier in life, she had been a ranger of Quel'Thalas. She had hunted the forest trolls that plagued the forests of her homeland. More often than not it was instinct, tempered in the fires of experience that had kept her going. To forgo one's own instinct to fight better was dangerous and foolish. Caledra concluded that it was largely the man's confusion and relief at the sight of an army that had marched into the battle under the cover of a foggy morning.

Thanking him, she put all her notes inside a satchel. This entire affair needed to be processed and catalogued. Her suspicions would also need to be mentioned. Yet at the same time Caledra was aware the alliance was hard pressed. During her regular work week, she had been translating a lot of petitions about wartime taxes. It seemed that the resettlement of Westfall and Redridge on top of prosecuting a full blown war was causing larger amounts of hardship to the merchants and traders of Stormwind. If the war dragged on for too long, everything that the House of Wrynn had created since the Second war ended would come apart at the seams.

Still, it was not her place to question. Caledra had always hated intrigue and politicking. Let the higher ups figure out what to do with the crisis when it would doubtless surface. If anything the threat of a world wide war was the only thing keeping the Kingdom in line. Once it was over, Stormwind's bulwark might crack. Maybe she would travel to Theramore instead. Several hundreds of her kin had gone over there at the start of the second war. Maybe she could take up her bow and become a ranger again. She missed the quiet companionship that living in the solitary lands brought to her. Days of travelling without seeing a single soul, weeks without conversation. Evenings spent at a campfire with pleasant conversations about nothing in particular. Her soul yearned for the simple comforts of a life of honest and hard work.

Caledra sighed. The amount of material she had collected for her report was large and she would spend the next day working on it. For the moment, she wanted nothing more to enjoy the sun and walk among the trees. Most of the nearest ones had been cut to make a makeshift palisade around southshore, but there were a few left to provide her with a modicum of peace and quiet. Ever since the Park in Stormwind had been destroyed, the city had lost it's lustre for her. A change of habitation would do her good.

Even as she went out, a hoarse cheer erupted from the militamen on duty. Caledra was startled. What was happening now? She ran to the entrance of the town, joining groups of soldiers were rushing ahead to investigate the commotions. Then she saw it. Over the distance, under a bright morning sun, and army was marching back to Southshore. She could easily make the banner at the forefront of the procession. An arm raising a sword under a blazing sun. Her quarry had returned.

Marshal Redpath was there as well, standing at the forefront, grinning. The mood at the gate was downright infectious. This was reserved for heroes returning victorious from a battle. She caught the strange notes of an unfamiliar musical piece being played on a flute, accompanying lyrics in an unknown language. Despite not understanding the lyrics, the tune of the music was enough. It was an uplifting and happy piece.

As the army approached closer, she was struck by the size of it. Nearly six hundred people marched, laden with what seemed like the spoils of war. It seemed that the mercenaries had not been idle. But what could they have acquired all this wealth from? There were no other towns a day's march away unless...

It could not be. Marshal Redpath went forward to meet them with a small party of warriors, and Caledra ran to join them. No one protested her presence. After all, she was here on behalf of the King of Stormwind.

The man leading the company had a smug look on his face. His half elf companion, and his underlings joined them as well. An unfamiliar face held aloft his banner, but that was not the object of her curiosity. No, the thing that drew her attention the most was the other banner torn and held aloft by his underlings. She knew forsaken banners when she saw one. The half smashed mask held aloft by arrows had long graced the outposts and towns held by the undead who were loyal to the Dark Lady. Seeing so low in the hands of a few humans could only mean one thing.

The leader spoke for a minute, struggling to contain his excitement and glee with a stoic voice. The the Half-Elf mage translated.

"Gentlemen of Southshore, we thank you for your kind hospitality. Feeling that it would be ungracious of us to further tax your provisions without good reason, we the Von Peiper Regiment took it upon ourselves to march north and destroy the town of your foes, the hated Undead. As a token of our deeds, let us present to you this banner as proof of the town's utter ruin."

The two men passed the banner to the marshal, who had two of his milita members take it. From what Caledra recalled Tarren Mill and Southshore had spend the past few years fighting in a bitter shadow war. These humans had finally ended the conflict.

The man was not done however. "We also found the head of the necromancer. We sincerely hope that you appreciate it. The rest of the body is a pile of ash."

A rotten head rolled in at Redpath's feet. He picked it up, examining it for a moment before he yelped.

"Helcular's head. They killed Helcular!"

If Caledra had thought that the soldiers of Southshore were happy before, she now had to change her opinion. They were ecstatic now. Redpath passed the head to each of his associates, before the swiftest of them ran with the Forsaken banner and the dessicated skull. The resultant cheers from the remaining soldiers were positively deafening.

The man smiled at the entire scene, his eyes crinkling with amusement. One of his associates, the handsome golden haired one whispered something in his ear and he nodded. Then he spoke his foreign babble again. Once more, the mage translated.

"My good sir, my men are tired and sick of sleeping in their tents. We would greatly appreciate if you gave us permission to stay in your town for the night."

Redpath was nodding even as the half-elf had finished.

Caledra sighed. Her report had just gotten longer.

* * *

 _ **DasPeas: Humans in warcraft speak Common. which is the english expy for the setting. Humans in Warhammer Fantasy speak Reikspiel which is the english expy for the setting. I compared Common directly with norscan in warhammer fantasy because of the heritage that humans have in Warcraft is vaguely similar to those of Norscans.**_

 _ **CaptnDetergent: You are welcome. I hope you have fun reading it.**_


	9. Chapter 9

**Linguistics**

* * *

Serra sighed as she looked at the table she shared with her present companions. The human Erich was hard at work learning the script she had drawn for him. Every few moments, he would slowly mouth another letter as he traced his hands over the unfamiliar script. Common had the same amount of letters that Reikspiel did, funnily enough. The languages seemed to have evolved in roughly opposite manners however. While Reikspiel had large numbers of dwarf loanwords, this Common language on the other hand seemed to have evolved words from it's own once primitive vocabulary. It was certainly an intriguing thought. A loremaster or a scholar who was interested academically in the language of the younger races would be far more interested in this hypothesis. After a century or two of studying these languages, maybe the scholar would be able to explain just how the languages evolved so differently.

A heap of small children's books lay on the human's side. Hopefully, within the next hour, he would be able to remember the letters and move onward to understanding simple words. The other person sharing the table with them was the long eared elf. Caledra Dawnbreeze was her name. She was proving to be only slightly better than the human as far as being a companion to talk to went. Not for lack of trying. Serra had sensed that she was shrewd. The kind of shrewd a gamekeeper of Chrace or a sailor from Eataine was, not the scholarly knowledge of a Loremaster of Saphery. She was trying to collect information about them. The elf's attempts were hobbled by the fact that most of the Company had only leared the words for 'Drink', 'food' and 'fornicate'. That was all they needed know – for the present. At least Erich was trying to learn the language in an organised manner, even if his presence was painfully slow.

As he finished reading the last letter, tracing his fingers over the last letter, Caledra smiled at him before telling Serra in Thalassian. "Your human seems determined." Serra bristled at that. A month and a half ago, she had hardly known the man, and now they were associating the human with her. Biting back an angry retort, she just stared at the elf until the other one looked away. Her human. What a preposterous idea. She loathed the idea of owning humans, an idea that was somewhat quaint by Asur standards.

Ever since Bel Shanaar had sent the then young Finubar to open diplomatic and trade relations with the humans that inhabited the old world, a large number of them had flooded Eataine. Traders for the most part, humans were cheap enough to hire on extended leases – often a lifetime for the poor creatures – and set to work as menial labourers and servants in the homes of the Asur. Despite what Teclis believed, there was a world of difference between slaves and paid servants. Humans that lived in the shadow of Lothern were free to leave once their contract was up. It was the difference between that what the Druchii did to their plundered slaves that defined them. The Asur had taken upon themselves to be the guardians and stewards of the world, while their fallen kin plundered it.

And now she was cut off from it, from the world that was her home, and her true kin. Explaining their predicament to Caledra would take too much of Serra's precious time. She doubted that long-ears would understand. Serra should be focusing on finding a way back home. Instead she was teaching a human how to read a language she herself had learned a day ago. To be honest, learned was not the appropriate term for it. She had put Caledra out of the reaches of time while she had worked her experience. Every memory that she had, analysed and stored. To say it was an invasive procedure would be an understatement. When starting, Serra had felt pangs of remorse. This was something theoretical that she had practiced on non-sapient creatures before. But moral qualms fled in the face of the enormity of the threat had surrounded her then. Now that she knew roughly what place she was in, Serra was confident in the right course of her action. They were far away from home. An ocean of time and space separated them from the Old world. It was up to her to find a way back, or they would be stuck here forever.

To her somewhat pleasant surprise, the human was showing something that vaguely approached initiative. He had opened a children's picture book and was trying pronounce the words. Even Caledra was helping him, correcting his pronunciation and helping him read the words. His eyes were lighting up with a somewhat childlike wonder as he slowly began to pick up steam. For Serra his progress was still too slow. How long would it take the human to actually learn the language at this rate? A month, two? She sighed. It was going to be a long day.

* * *

After hours of being shut in the room, Erich emerged, beaming at everyone else. He and lieutenants had been assigned, or rather helped themselves to, the best rooms in the tavern. Everyone else was billeted in the town. They would be about drinking or whoring themselves silly. Good lads. A taste of the better things in life made fighting far more worthwhile. Serra, and the long eared elf Caledra walked after him, talking in a strange lilting language that he was sure different from the one he was trying to learn. It didn't matter. One battle at a time. Erich was now confident that he could order a drink.

In contrast to the dingier drinking holes that he preferred to frequent in Tilea and Nuln, the parlour of the tavern was very well lit. The windows were open and a fresh sea breeze wafted in, driving out the less wholesome spells that would have been otherwise present in the room. It was half full, with some of his boys and some soldiers from the town. To say that drinks were flowing would be an understatement. The barmaids were rushing from table to table, much to the joy of his men who would fill their empty tables with gold coins before clamouring for drink. After the events of the last week, Erich had forgotten that the men had not been in something like this tavern for over a month. Now, fresh with the gold from a new contracts and loot off the battlefield, they were spending money like young nobles who had more money than wits. Even as one group left after enough grog, another would come in and fill the table. Erich did not need to understand the language to see the gleam behind the innkeeper's eyes.

He stood there for a moment, taking in the surroundings, reminded of his younger days. Days filled with promise. Days long gone into the ash heap of memory. His smile had dimmed. Just then, a group of pikemen entered the tavern. "Its El Capitan. Eh Signor, would you like to join us for a drink?" A young man, scarcely out of boyhood was the speaker. Erich could see he was trying to grow a full set of facial hair. Maybe if he kept at it for a year, it would be somewhat respectable. As it was, Erich was filled with the urge to get the boy to shave. It would be a hilarious wager.

"I do not see, why not. Find a table for us will you, lad? And tell me your name while you are at it."

The man, his glinting said, "Erico, Capitan."

Erich smiled. They had similar names. What a coincidence.

"Be a good land and find me and my friends a table. I will get us all a drink."

Erich waved and ducked through the crowd, moving towards the bartender. He sat down on a stool between two soldiers of the guard. The bartender gave him an expectant smile. After a moment of thinking, Erich managed to say, "I want drink." The man smiled and replied something to the effect of what Erich assumed was "What drink?" It was a fair question. Erich didn't know how to respond. Of course. He didn't know the words for any particular kind of drink. The silence was starting to get awkward.

Thankfully, Serra came to the rescue. She had been following him down to the parlour while talking with the long eared elf, Caledra. Almost surreptitiously, she had followed him to the bartender and slowly stood behind him, taking in the scene. She said something to the bartender and the man nodded before going to what Erich assumed was the cellar.

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him you wanted rum. That is what you always drink is it not?"A correct observation. If anyone else had done it, Erich would not have minded. However, the way the elf framed the question told him that she was singularly uninterested and bored. She really had a way of getting under his skin.

"I also like to drink other things. You think they will have Bugman's beer?" Serra rolled her eyes at his question before replying

"The chances that they have that dwarf poison in these parts is minuscule. Stick to Rum."

"I was just trying to make conversation." He said somewhat sheepishly. She stared daggers in return.

The man returned with drinks. Meanwhile Erico and his friends had already settled down and were chatting with each other. There was enough space for Erich at the trestle table. Even as he sat down, Serra and Caledra joined him. While he wasn't sure they were invited, no one seemed to complain. They were both incredibly attractive, if elven, and Serra was something of a very useful ally now. As it was, both of them never needed to pay for their drinks as the soldiers who left or entered were buying them new rounds. Serra seemed to be extremely off put by the attention she was getting, even though it was far less predatory and more welcoming. Caledra on the other hand seemed to enjoy it. In a way they were polar opposites of each other.

The pikemen meanwhile were trying to roll some dice. Inebriated as they were, no particular game was being played or wagers struck. The men were just happy that they were living under a roof and with beds for a change. Erich would probably need to make sure that they didn't steal things from the houses they were billeted in. It was a bother. Even at the best of times several things would go missing, ranging from doorknobs to family plate. On the other hand, the town itself didn't seem particularly rich. Apart from the well maintained harbour, it seemed to be largely provincial. The land around it seemed to compare favourably to Bretonnia at it's best.

Von Peiper's Regiment had campaigned Bretonnia less than a year ago as spring had started. Compared to the dark and forested lands of the empire, Bretonnia was a land of gently rolling hills and valleys with ample farmland and the trees too far away. The peasants there on the other hand seemed like a wretched blight. It seemed to him that all the vitality had been drained from them and transferred to the land itself. His contract was to herd sheep, and to drive away orcs who would often raid the lands of some petty nobles from their fortresses in either the Vault or the Massif Orcal. It had been a simple, if dangerous job.

Greenskins held a particular place of hatred for him. He assumed that must be part of his Sollander heritage, or the many books he read while he grew up. They were a threat to humanity. The few dwarfs he had made acquaintances of during his stay in Nuln had been something akin to sympathetic to him. Not that dwarfs felt sympathy the same way humans did. To them ancestral wrongs were something to drive them forward, not as chains that held them back. They knew that the Umgi of southern Wissenland had fallen into ruin when a WAAAGH had destroyed their land. The sacred symbol of Elector counts, the mythical runefangs had been borne away by the orc warlord never to be held by true Sollanders again. It was now wielded by the Reiksmarshal as a symbol of his land had been crushed, physically and spiritually. From this malaise there would have been no recovering. Still, dwarfs lost their holds to Greenskins and the Skaven from time to time. They at least had been able to empathise with the suffering his people held close to their chests.

This land on the other hand seemed filled with people that were well fed and largely happy. He could see it in their physique. They didn't have to crawl through the mud for a day to find snails to eat. No lord would take nine-tenths of their harvest as taxes. It almost seemed idyllic in comparison to the things he had seen in Bretonnia, the Empire and even to a lesser extent in Tilea and Estalia. This could very well be a place where he could live out the rest of his days in comfort, with enough food in his belly. After years of fighting in distant lands for coin, the thought of it was something Erich cherished. Home for him now was something with four walls and a roof, with a log in the fireplace.

"Capitan, you seem awfully quiet." Erico's voice rang out. The man was sitting at some distance from him. Nearly everyone at the table was watching him, conversations stopping as they turned to look. Even Serra and her companion turned their head to look at him. For a fleeting moment he was the centre of attention. "Just thinking Erico." Just thinking

"What are you thinking about Capitan? Are we to get a raise?" The man was half joking and half hopeful. He could hear Serra translate the conversation to Caledra who looked quizzically.

"No, Erico. I was wondering how long you had been growing that fuzz that you call a beard. It is a most vexing problem."The roar of laughter that greeted him told Erich that he was now in control of this conversation. Taking the initiative, he continued. "How about a wager gentlemen? We are all flush with plunder and our salaries."Erich held a single coin in his hand now, glimmering in the half light of the room. "I say we bet on how old that fuzz on Signor Erico's cheek is, and the man who is the closest wins. What say you?" An encouraging roar went up from the table. The men were bored. Idle distractions like these would keep their spirits up. His cap was filled to the brim with coins and then some. Soldiers from the surrounding table wanted to join in the wager. It was the kind of harmless fun that bonded them together when they were not fighting or on the march. Much to his surprise, even some of the soldiers from Southshore came to look.

"Serra, if you could please translate the terms of our wager to these fine ladies and gentlemen, I would be happy to include them in the betting pool."

It seemed that they were not too different from the Tileans after all. At the prospect of a bet, their eyes lined up and they threw in a few copper and silver coins as well. Erich did not need a translator for that. All in all, nearly two dozen men and women were going to bet a small fortune on Erico's facial hair.

The next fifteen minutes were some of the most hectic and fun memories of the past week. Men and women in various stages of inebriation tried to guess a time from anywhere from 'an hour ago' to 'thirty years'. Drinks were passed around and jokes were made at the different wagers. Finally, the time came to find out. Erico was now standing on the table along with Erich, both with mugs in their hand. Erich's was empty and he felt like he was swimming. It felt like a good time to stop drinking. Erico said something. Erich didn't quite catch it. The table was silent.

Serra translated it for the benefit of everyone else. A young woman in the armour of the local militia clapped her hand to her mouth. They had found their winner. She babbled something while her comrades clapped her on the back. Serra translated. "She said that her brother always looked like that if he did not shave in the morning." Erich beckoned her to get up onto the table.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have our winner! This young lady gets to make off with all our gold earned. Not that we would mind. A wager is a wager, and we alas that we must be poorer on this fine day." A few good natured grumbles from his men. They knew how this game went. "And what you would spend it on, my good sir? More drink eh?"

The man laughed. "I would rather spend it on a woman."

"What a strange course of fate it must seem to you my good man. As it turns out, you already have."

"Where's my sense of satisfaction and pleasure Capitan?" The man seemed to be enjoying this as much as him. He was an older fellow with a dark bushy moustache was the only thing noteworthy about his face. His flushed cheeks and smile were proof enough that the man wanted nothing more than to engage in some friendly banter.

Taking on the air of a noble with a falsetto voice that was now the raging fashion in Tilea, Erich placed a hand on his hip, and the other on his forehead. It was a popular pose used by actors and playwrights, who more often than not were as drunk during their performances than they were now.

"Alas my friend, I can only advise you to be satisfied in the fact that you bet but a single golden coin instead of your entire fortune, and be pleased that you still have your left hand to tend to your needs."

The wave of laughter that crashed into him was sweeter than all the clink of gold in the world, sweeter than the caress of a lover lying next to him, sweeter than the bugles announcing victory on the field of battle. Right now Erich felt that he could do anything. Then a small voice in the corner of his mind whispered, it's voice solemn and sad. "What would your father think if he saw you now."

Suddenly the laughter turned hollow. Erich, surrounded by people who trusted him enough to put their lives in his hand, felt alone in the world. For a split moment, his showmanship had gone. Then the moment passed. Erich slowly got down from the trestle table, smiling all the while. As his men enquired after him, he shook his head and managed to say. "I am too tired lads. You have a fun time without me. And see to it that the young lady who won the wager gets her gold."

His rooms were upstairs, and Myrmidia willing, he would find some solitude to think.

* * *

Caledra watched the human leave upstairs. There was something off-putting about his posture. One could excuse that with the amount of drink he had. That amount of Rumsey Rum would have floored a dwarf adventurer. Living in stormwind, she had seen her fair share of drunken humans. They could not speak at all, and could barely stand upright. At the same time, the way his shoulders hunched bespoke of sorrow. It was as if he was a different man than the one marching at the head of a victorious army. She turned to the half elf and asked in Thalassian. "Is he all right?" Serra turned a cursory glance at the figure before saying. "He probably drank too much. Foolish man."

The rest of the room seemed festive enough. The young woman, Private Amanda seemed happy enough. After all, she had spent a single silver coin to win a month's salary. They were all congratulating her. Even as Caledra watched the soldiers ordered a drink. It seemed that they were quick enough learners when it came to ordering food and drink. The barkeep was happy enough. Their knowledge of Common was too rudimentary to ask for change, and he at the very least was not returning them. She wondered if by the end of the week he would have enough money to open a tavern in Goldshire or Redridge.

After about an hour, the crowd began to thin out. To her, it seemed that most of the men had enough to drink. There was little else to do in this provincial backwater. She had spent the time conversing with Serra. To her frustration, the half-elf knew what Caledra was up to. She had been rather charming but at the same time frustratingly difficult to get information out of. The woman had drunk enough that her face was now flushed, much the same as Caledra had, but her mind seemed lucid enough to dodge any pointed questions. She said that she was from the province of Cothique and studied magic at the White tower of Saphery. She had joined the mercenary band for some adventure before she returned home to settle down. To Caledra, the names were meaningless without any geographical or spatial underpinning to them. Making matters worse, she was sure that Serra was not lying. Not completely anyway. She seemed certain that the places she mentioned existed.

Deciding there was not much left to do, Caledra decided to retire for the day. Her report was finished and she needed to send it to Stormwind. General Garrick would be very interested in this mercenary company that he would be working with during the incursion into Silverpine forest. Despite their largely foreign nature, they seemed genial enough as people. If not for the language barrier they would do great to complement the Stormwind army was coming to take the war to the Horde. From what she had seen of Serra, the half elf was dismissive about the Forsaken threat. Caledra supposed she would be too. After all, this mercenary regiment had crushed a forsaken army and destroyed a major Horde settlement without even taking any significant losses. In a way, the dismissive attitude of Serra reminded her of Quel'Thalas before it's fall. They were a mighty power then, and the years since had all but crushed them. Now the Quel'Dorei were torn apart by civil war and unrest. Their kin had turned their backs on them, and they were outcasts from their own home. It was a terrible fate for a people once so proud.

Brooding on it would do nothing. Caledra got up to leave, before noticing the cap. It was still lying on the table, but now empty of every coin. At least the feathers were still intact. Despite the outlandish design, she could appreciate it's work. It was embroidered with gold, the designs showing simple curling shapes that seemed to blend into each other. Single threads stark against the black backdrop of the cap slowly entwined each other as thy reached the centre of the golden band. Like streams that coalesced into a river, they continued onward towards the forefront of the cap. It was an embroidered etching of the sun, gleaming in the rapidly decreasing light of the room. She sighed. It would soon be time to light the lanterns in the tavern.

Taking the cap, she got up to return it to the human captain. Serra had left a few minutes ago, saying her goodbyes. She was a tolerable if somewhat frigid companion. The human on the other hand seemed fun to be around when he was somewhat tipsy. He also seemed to be eloquent enough to string together complex sentences without losing lucidity. And he was also probably wondering where his hat went.

She made to knock on his door when she heard a soft sound coming through it. Someone was inhaling and exhaling rapidly. Caledra knew what happened when people had too much to drink. Their nervous system would depress and their muscles would relax. Lungs would not be able to pump air, they would try to breathe heavily, and die choking on their vomit. By the Sunwell, was this what was happening to the human?

The door was unlocked. She pushed it open and rushed into the room. The object of her search was sitting down on the table muttering to himself in a language she did not understand. She took the entire scene for a moment. No innkeeper would find a fault with this room. It was immaculately kept. Even the towels next to wash basins were folded.

The human turned to look at her. In the dim light of the room, his grey eyes glittered. Had he been crying? She walked up to him softly. His eyes were unfocused for a moment before recognition dawned. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve before saying something. While she could not understand what he said, his voice was steady enough. Despite herself, Caledra was impressed. The man had downed enough rum to kill someone, and he could still make conversation – if he knew the language.

She handed him back her cap. He looked at it for a moment, and then back at her, thinking. Then slowly he managed to say, "Thank You." His pronunciation was atrocious, and he used the wrong pronoun, but it was a start. Caledra could not help but stifle a laugh as she responded with an acknowledgement.

The man gestured her to sit. Having nothing better to do, she took the seat opposite to him. He had taken a feather from his cap and was using it to write something. He passed the parchment to her. To her surprise, she could read it just fine.

 _Thank you for bringing my cap back to me. I forgot about it in the commotion while I was leaving._

He passed her the quill and gave her a fresh sheaf of parchment. No sooner had she put the quill to the paper, her hand moved on it's own accord, scrawling meaningless symbols on the paper. To Caledra's surprise she could read it perfectly clearly

 _It is fine. Were you crying?_

The man smiled. It was a sad smile.

 _No, the soot from the candles makes my eyes water. Having a magical feather write my thoughts is however makes me want to cry._

That explained it. The quill was enchanted.

 _It is quite a novel magic trick, I have never seen anything like it. You seem like a broken person. I wish I was back home._

Damn. It seemed to put on paper whatever she had on her mind. She had to be careful to focus her mind as she put her quill on to the paper. Meanwhile the human was scribbling something even as his eyes were unfocused.

 _I do not know much about magic. However it seems to solved our communications problem rather fetchingly, don't you think?_

She had to admit that it did. The man's smile now was less sad.

 _Miss Dawnbreeze, if you do not mind, I would like your help in learning this language. I find that doing something lets me focus away from more pointless thoughts and ruminations._

Caledra nodded and started to teach the man the basics of Common. Sheaf upon sheaf of parchment was filled with scribbles that the two of them could understand. Bit by bit, she taught the human words and how sentences were formed, with their proper tenses and cases. Much to her surprise, the human seemed to catch it quite quickly. It was surprisingly enjoyable too. As he sobered up, his mind seemed to pick up the pace. Humans, even the brightest were not this fast.

Caledra wondered what kind of strange land had bred this person who seemed to stay focused even after drinking enough to make a dwarf go blind. Part of her found this to be incredibly fun. When she was just an archer learning how to aim her bow, five centuries ago, she had spent long hours learning the secret signs that allowed Farstriders and rangers to communicate with each other without making a sound. In time, she would have taught it to a new generation of elves. The Scourge had taken away that sacred task from her. In a strange and roundabout way, what she was doing to help this foreign human mercenary from a distant lad learn common was an echo of that sacred task.

After a few hours, Caledra sat back tired but pleased. The human's progress was phenomenal. A day ago, he was barely able to ask for a drink. The past half hour, they had been conversing in common. His accent was harsh, but he was an eloquent speaker. He had told her much about himself in his eagerness to show her the newly found mastery he had of her language. He was of noble blood from a distant land called the Empire. Of course – leave it to humans to be dramatic. At least that explained how he was able to speak eloquently enough to catch the attention of his soldiers.

Interestingly enough, right now the human was scribbling something on a piece of paper. Strangely enough, it was not with the enchanted quill but a regular one. After he finished with it, he picked up the enchanted quill and wrote something down before passing the note on to her.

The parchment was filled with a script she had not seen before. Underneath it was what the human had been thinking while he had made it.

 _Milady, I thank you teaching me the language of this land. I am honoured to have been your student. Furthermore, I would like to return the favour to you by teaching you the language of my people. It shall not be too difficult for me. Doubtless, you are an excellent student as you make a fine teacher. I can only ask you to accept my offer and hope that you do._

Caledra had nothing better to do. The fleet from Stormwind was still en route to reinforce Southshore. Once it arrived and her paperwork signed by General Garrick, she could leave. At the same time, any stray intelligence she gathered from the soldiers would be of service to the Alliance. And they would never even know that she understood their language.

The man began with the letters.

They went at it for hours, communicating the intricacies and grammatical structure of the language with their thoughts. The two of them were racking up an awful amount of parchment for the most part, but Caledra had to admit it worked just as well on her as it did on the human. Perhaps that was the secret to learning a language. If people could understand each other's thoughts they could understand how they expressed them with the help of sounds and words.

The hours seemed to fly by. They spent most of the next day shut in the room, learning each other's languages while trying to converse with each other. The human seemed to be getting better at common by the hour. Most of his accent had disappeared, and instead of sounding like something spoken by a creature of the burning legion, he simply sounded more like a foreigner speaking a language he was not very used to. Her own foray into the language known as Reikspiel had not been as smooth. She could converse with him perfectly, but more often than not, Caledra called Erich a she, or a they. The rules of grammar for the language seemed even more arbitrary that Common.

Still, it was good to see her tutoring bear fruit. When Erich went down to eat on the next day, he was able to order the local speciality, a turtle bisque, and successfully ask for change. Not bad for two days of hard work and sharing thoughts.

They were in the room conversing about life in general. Currently, to increase their proficiency in their newly acquired languages, they were trying to continue a conversation in each other's tongues. Erich would say something in Common, and Caledra would respond in Reikspiel. It was an arduous task, but it seemed to be bearing fruit. Her knowledge of cases was becoming more solidified and she had even begun to pick up common phrases and dissect their meaning. A more scholarly mind living in Dalaran would have been fascinated. As it was, she was getting more frustrated.

They had been conversing about their homelands. She had told the human that she lived in Stormwind. He had asked if it was a city populated by elves like her. Caledra had explained that it was a human city that had a significant dwarf and gnome population. The human had corrected her word gnome to be halfling. Apparently that was the word in Reikspiel for the little fuzzy critters that were sapient but smaller than dwarfs.

The human was from a land called the Land of the Sun. To hear him speak of it, in all the Empire, it was perhaps the most beautiful and rugged land to ever have existed. The way he described it, reminded her of the northern reaches of Lordaeron where it met Quel'Thalas. In years past Rangers often passed into the lands between the two nations to keep an eye out for trolls. His descriptions of his homeland matched with her experiences there. Pine forests in rocky terrain watching over quaint farms and castles of petty nobles. Far away from the largest cities of their kind.

"What happened to your houseland?" She asked.

"'Home', my dear. 'House' is what you refer to when you are dealing with the structure. The concept is referred to is 'Home'. It is quite similar to Common." He paused. He was speaking Reikspiel. He continued in common.

"Anyway, we lived under the shadow of the mountains. Orcs would always attack in greater numbers year after year, decade after decade, and century after century. Over five hundred years ago the Greenshins attacked. They years prior had slowly whittled down our numbers and our fellow provinces were led by rulers who would rather bicker with each other than send help against a larger threat. We fought valiantly in the trees, in the farms, by the rivers and at last in our very capital.

We lost. The symbol of our ruler was borne away by the victorious monsters for decades. Our land was in ruin, and the only symbol that defined our place in the greater world had been stolen. The land lived, but the Land of the Sun had gone down over the mountains and into shadow."

His tone had shifted from conversational to melancholy as he finished his anecdote. Caledra looked at him. His eyes were wistfully staring at the candle flame, and he was wringing his cap in his hands.

"Ever since then, we, the people of Solland have spread far and wide across the lands of the empire. Our lands were absorbed into a nearby province. Our ancient capital is now a market for wool, and the few of us that remain now cling more firmly to our pasts, holding on to our trappings even as the world begins to leave us by. It is a sad thing, to cling on to the scraps of memory reminiscing about the glory days long gone. How fitting that it applies to my kin perfectly."

Caledra was about to say something, when the bugle from the docks went out. Almost as fast as her, the human was on the alert, his hand on his pistol.

"What was that?" He asked in Reikspiel. The half dreaming scholarly man talking about his long lost homeland was gone. A cunning soldier remained asking for a reconnaissance report from his scout.

Caledra waited with baited breath. Then a bugle played the welcome refrain sung at ports. Southshore was closed to all non military vessels. This could only mean one thing.

The Stormwind Army had arrived.

* * *

 _ **CaptnDetergent: The major advantage that a veteran mercenary company would possess over most Warcraft forces is the fact that they can co-ordinate and act in unision in pitched battles. Warcraft as a setting doesn't have too much of actual thoughtful warfare going on, given the nature of the MMO game. WHFB on the other hand was all about the battles instead of an ongoing story. On an individual level, A Pikeman is going to lose to a Stormwind guard, especially as heavy armour is far more easily accessible in warcraft. So far Erich has defeated an undead army that he managed to flank and entrap with his men, and sacked a largely empty town because Serra is a mage from Saphery and can handle necromancers on the level of Helcular. He also has not faced an actual army led by a general yet. The leader of the Forsaken is just that.**_

 _ **LordofBones: Why? are pro alliance warhammer crossovers uncommon?**_


	10. Chapter 10

**Might of The Alliance**

* * *

Even as the small fleet approached the harbour, General Garrick's spirit rose by an order of magnitude. The last few days had been a long and harrowing enough journey. The constant rocking of the ship threatened to upset his stomach and bring his half digested meals back up his throat. The constant whinnying of horses in the ship's hold did not help. Transporting knights with boats always felt like a bad idea. The poor beasts were spooked far more easily than even the most timid of soldiers. Thankfully a few night elven druids were down below the decks keeping the animals from stampeding inside the hold. Most of his men were green and seasick. It would take a day of resting even before they were ready to actually move out.

Garrick had hated ships ever since he had nearly drowned in Lordamere lake when he was seven. The world had been so different then. Lordaeron still stood proud. The bulwark against the brutal bloodlust of the horde. He had been too young then to fight,or even remember ,but he still remembered cheering with the rest of the crowd as the Knights of lordaeron had marched forth from the capital to take the fight to the greenskins. How their banners had fluttered in the wind as Anduin Lothar and his lieutenants had taken the road from the palace to the outskirts of the city. The ringing of bells in the Stormwind cathedral still brought tears to his eyes.

And now the time had come to take Lordaeron back from the monsters that skittered and crawled in the ruins of the fallen kingdom. Varian Wrynn's missive was short and to the point. They were to take as much land in the silverpine region and hold any major targets of opportunity. The rest remained unsaid. Once the Horde had been inevitably defeated, the land would be resettled. The taint could be healed, the Night elven druids had informed him. He would see the banners of Lordaeron fly from highest towers of Fenris Keep. Then General Olivar Garrick could rest.

As his ship was moored into the harbour, he almost flew down the gangplank. At last, wooden floors that did not buckle with every wave. Lieutenant Melrick was still on the ship, taking an inventory of the all the items that had been in the cargo hold. The paraphernalia of a hundred knights needed cataloguing, not to mention the amount of fodder the mounts would need. Most of the army was made up of former citizens of Lordaeron, with a few dwarf and Night Elf allies, along with a few gnomes. While Olivar had been distrustful of the elves initially, they had proved themselves to be valuable allies. Their huntresses were second to none in their woodcraft or their archery. The druids, mostly men were scouts that were second to none, flying over their armies to provide, quite literally, a bird's eye view of a battlefield. They said they could heal Lordaeron from the ravages of the scourge as well.

The rest of the ships were mooring onto the quays when Lieutenant Melrick returned to make his report. "Sir, all the armour and armaments are well accounted for, and the horses seem healthy enough to fight after spending some time stretching their legs."

"What about the riders?"

"About as ready as their horses are sir."

Garrick nodded. It seemed that his knights were in high spirits. Though few in number, their skill at arms and the élan they carried themselves with in the middle of battle would make up for their skill. They were his hammer with which he would smash the forsaken. Light willing, he would celebrate Winter's veil and the new year in his own castle. The days were turning longer now, and the wind this far north was colder than in sunny Stormwind. It would be good to feel real snow, not the fake crap the mages in Stormwind would summon during the week before the festivities started.

"Splendid. Once the horses are safely on land, I want you to to tell the knights to mount their steeds and march into the town hall. It is time to let the people of Southshore know that the time has come to liberate our homeland."

It took a further hour for the horses to be safely disembarked from the ship. The winches and cranes creaked as tons of living horseflesh was hoisted in the air for a minute before landing. If Garrick had thought that the horses were panicked during the voyage, then he was forced to changed that opinion. The poor creatures screamed and neighed as they went airborne and were suspended above the docks. Their panic was infectious and the horses still in the ship's hold began to champ and panic at the sound of the cacophony.

Once more the druids came to the rescue. A few of them walked among the horses, either whispering to them or using their calming them down with magic. With a stampede being averted, most of the horses suffered to let themselves be held aloft with the soft cooing of the elves helping them stay calm as they landed. Garrick watched them with a bit of fascination. He had always been good with animals, even before he had trained to be a knight. His bond seemed thinner than paper when compared with the deep trust the horses instinctively had in the Night Elven Druids.

The sun was shining brightly by the time the knights were ready to join their mounts. Once the horses had been becalmed, they needed to wait for the spells to wear off before they would even respond to commands. Garrick sat on a splendid charger from the Stormwind stables, armoured in plate, just as his mount was. From a distance he knew they looked splendid, towering over others armoured head to toe in Mithril Plating with their mounts. Garrick was an old fashioned man. While he admitted that the technology of the dwarfs and gnomes had their place on the battlefield, their gadgets and were often too few in number to be effective this far away from Ironforge. No. Battles now would be won as they had in the past, with valour and skill at arms.

He was also curious to see these strange mercenaries whose surprise victory against the Forsaken had turned heads all the way up to the Throne room of Stormwind Keep. To most of the civilian population of Southshore, now sequestered safely in Elwynn or Stormwind itself, they were nothing less than angels, who had come from the mists to utterly crush a forsaken army that was poised to destroy the last remaining remnant of Lordaeron. Their wild rumours had spread throughout the city like dragon fire, with the soldiers being compared to mythical heroes from the kingdom of Arathor, when humanity was still in it's infancy.

As his cavalry procession marched into the town itself, the rumours began to strip away from the facts that seemed to assert themselves before Garrick's eyes. The city was crawling with strange humans who walked about half or fully drunk, spoke in barbaric tongues and looked at him with insolent gazes. Their clothes were foreign and badly kept. Several of them went about half naked laughing about something or vandalising houses. Once or twice he had the urge to strike down the knaves who seemed to be making off with the solid brass doorknobs or knockers that adorned the more wealthier houses in the town. To make matters worse, the few soldiers that he saw with armour failed to impress him. They looked threadbare compared to even the humble footmen, who wore full plate harnesses. A few of them seemed to have breastplates or mail shirts, along with strange helmets that left their faces open and exposed. Even the Southshore forces looked ornate compared to them.

This was no army of heroes. This was a drunken rabble armed with weapons of poor make that seemed intent on looting drinking and whoring. The King had paid them with enough gold to fight a battle and this is what they did? They vandalised homes of hardworking men and women of Stormwind and Lordaeron before taking anything that was not bolted or nailed to the floor. Inside his helmet, Garrick's nose crinkled with disgust. He wanted to run down this rabble with his knights for stealing the property of his people. Light damn them. They were more akin to carrion crow than the brave warriors he had been hearing about in Stormwind.

He would meet their leader, and then decide what to do with this rabble that dared called itself a Mercenary Army.

* * *

"So Rodrigo, I suppose you are enjoying your time in the fair town of Southshore?" Erich did not really need to ask him the question. It was clear from the man's facial expression, accentuated by the copious amounts of beer he was drinking that he was more than enjoying himself.

"Ah, Signor. I feel like I should hang up my boots and retire now. Maybe raise a family and be an attentive father. I do not think soldiering suits me." Here he was again. Ten years of hearing the man talk about starting a family every time he returned from a successful campaign. Erich had heard all his arguments and could now recite them by heart.

"There was this girl I met while growing up in Tobaro. She had the most wonderful laugh that made me forget her faults. Not a beauty, mind you but more of a tavern wench that I could comfortably reach. Her sisters were the talk of the street, and she was like the grass flower that had grown up among lilies. I could go on and on about her..." And he did. Myrmidia bless him. Rodrigo's tale used to grow longer every time he said what he had to say about his sweetheart from Tobaro. Being the good sport that he was Erich sat and listened to everything about this girl, from the way she poured out drinks to the way her hair tousled about her shoulders. This was Rodrigo's favourite way to unwind. The man might be a mercenary – carrion crow – as the honourable Bretonnians called soldiers for hire, but he still had a soft spot. "She had my child you know." His voice was suddenly tremulous with emotion.

Erich sat up. This was new. On the other side of the table, Luigi – despite the fact that his knowledge of common extended to a few grunts and the words for 'drink' and 'fuck', had managed to nestle between two of the prettier soldiers of the garrison who were sharing their seat with him – stared at him with something approaching wonder. No one had ever imagined that Rodrigo would have a child. Erich managed to say. "Really, how old is she?"

"She would be eleven or twelve by now Signor."

The man had a secret life even before he began service as a mercenary. So many questions emerged in Erich's head. He managed to stammer out, "When was the last time you saw her?"

"After our contract in Bilbali, when we were returning to Tilea."

"That was over a year ago!"

"Yes, and every time I see her, I feel a little less inclined to return back to my job."

That explained his somewhat moody behaviour, and the fact that Rodrigo was not too happy with the contract Erich took with Serra. They would be away from home for a long time. Away from his daughter.

"You should have told me. I would have understood if you wanted to leave the band and settle down." Erich was still processing what Rodrigo had told him. By Myrmidia. Rodrigo, their Rodrigo, a father.

"Where's the fun in that. Besides, I have been sending all my money to my Isabel and little Rosa. She has her own tavern now. Or rather, we have it." Rodrigo blushed. Erich could not figure out what was more fantastic.

"So you married her?"

"Yes, Signor. People were asking too many questions. Where was a not so young mother with a bastard child and no source of income able to pay the rent? So the last time I was there, I married her in a chapel. Once this is over, I am going to give Littorio my crossbow, I see how he craves it, and hang up my boots. My fighting days are about done. Once this war with the dead is over, I am taking my money and saying farewell."

Luigi spoke. He was younger than the two of them by a few years. He was terrified of children. "I suppose a congratulations are in order then eh, Master Rodrigo?" Luigi had a gift. His smiles were infectious. Erich ordered some of the beer they had at the tavern. It was a fine if somewhat frothy drink.

"To a new life, for our Rodrigo!" He said, rasing a toast. Luigi, Rodrigo, and the two soldiers joined in. The latter could not understand what was being said but they were certainly able to interpret the gesture. It seemed that no matter how distant humans were, they could always celebrate with drink. A drink led to another, and after the fourth round of beers one of the women asked her compatriot while giggling, " What are we drinking to?"

"I don't know came the reply."

Erich was about to interject when a pair of familiar figures burst into the room.

Everyone at the bench cheered. Caledra and Serra were known to the Southshore Garrison and the soldiers respectively.

Luigi got up, walked to them and said, "We have to buy you a drink."

Caledra looked at him some kind of alarm. Erich remembered that she could speak Reikspiel perfectly fine. As far as he knew, she only engaged in conversation with him, to sharpen her skills.

Serra meanwhile looked at him like Luigi was a dog dropping that she has trodden on. Taking a moment to compose herself, she beckoned Erich and said. "Captain. The leader in charge our expedition has arrived with his army. He would like to speak with you. He seems like a very busy man."

Erich stood up. A couple of beers. He didn't even feel a buzz. This was going to go splendidly.

"Anything I should know about the person from your expert deductions, Miss Serra?"

Luigi and Rodrigo snickered. Erich had started calling her Miss Serra since she was now technically their employee. It caused her grief and seemed to be a funny enough name. Being a mercenary meant that you had to find joy in the small things instead of big grand plans.

"He has more pomposity in his left hand than all five of you put together."

Yes, this was going to go splendidly indeed.

* * *

Serra looked at the thundering man's carrot covered hair. He had refused to shake hands with Erich and not offered him a seat. Meanwhile, he sat down at the best chair in the hall with a huff and started to say enough things that were largely superfluous. Typical human, liking the sound of his voice enough to say the things over and over again while his sands ran out.

Erich just smiled sheepishly at the man, infuriating him further. After a full ten minutes he stopped and drank a glass of water.

Erich looked at her questioningly. His eyes were wide open and the half smile he had suggested that the was looking forward to her translating whatever the Carrot haired human had said at length. Instead Serra was content with stating the basic gist of what the human had been ranting about for so long.

"The General says that you are no warriors. That you have been looting Alliance towns after taking money from the king of Stormwind. That your gear is shabby and your skill in combat is pathetic. He asks you to give a good reason as to why he should not immediately execute your men for vandalising the town and send your head back to his king on a spike."

Erich was positively grinning now. Without bothering to ask, he dragged a chair and sat down upon it. The human's face reddened, and he now resembled a beet with the ridiculous red hair of his. It was all Serra could do not to laugh. Despite herself, she was curious in what Erich had to say to this person.

Serra did not doubt that the man could easily carry out his threat. The landing army was thrice as big as the mercenary regiment and was far more heavily armed. They were also more organised as of this moment than Von Peiper's Regiment which was largely billeted in houses and shacks. No, it could not end like this.

Erich spoke.

"Yes, I am afraid you are right, my good General. My men are not warriors. I do not doubt that if you wished you could easily hack my head and hang it on a spear to send back to your king. At the same time, you can ask the remaining people of this town who saved them from the cold and grasping hand of the dead. It was not your king. It was not you, or your army of valiant warriors. It was us, the pond scum you so seem to loathe. A contract has been signed between me, and a person none other than the King you refer to so highly. I am afraid that you will have to ask his permission before you can void my contract. Regarding my men vandalising and looting the town, it is but small hurt in comparison to what the dead would have done to it. A day's march north from here, even the land is sickly and dying. The houses in it are rotting, their denizens fodder for crows and dogs. A few stolen doorknobs is a small trade for this kind of security

Say what you will about my men, but never insinuate that they do not know how to fight."

Serra translated, keeping most of the rough language out. To her it seemed that Erich was supremely confident in the fighting ability of his men.

The human, Garrick grunted at her apologies and said something. In return to Erich's questioning gaze, she translated. "We shall see."

He smiled at that. "Indeed we shall."

Erich pushed out of his chair, performing the most miniscule of curtsies to the man who had threatened to put his head on a spike. Confidently nonchalant was the word Serra would have used to describe him at that point. In contrast, Garrick looked like he was about to bleed from all his orifices.

* * *

Caledra had heard the entire conversation from the back of the room. Garrick had been harsh, if seemingly accurate in his description of the mercenary regiment and it's general state. She had seen adventurers who collected gnoll paws manage to look more dignified than some of the soldiers in the army. At the same time, these were the men who had utterly crushed a Forsaken army, something even the Scourge had struggled to do and failed, and spent their first day without orders marching north and destroying the last major forsaken outpost south of Lordamere lake without breaking so much as a sweat – and of course enriching themselves in the process.

Either they were still being hoodwinked by the banshee queen, or these drunkards really were magnitudes more competent than their armour and behaviour suggested. Either way would have massive ramifications. If the former was true, then the army of Olivar Garrick was the fish that had caught the bait and would soon expand the Forsaken forces. If the latter was true, the Alliance now had an army that could take on the best the Horde had to offer without a scratch.

This place was not safe for Caledra. She wanted to return to Stormwind. Let someone, whether it be Melrick or Garrick or Serra deal with the inevitable fallout of this harebrained idea. Caledra wanted nothing to do with it. She turned to leave when Garrick's voice rang out. "Where do you think you are going?" She sighed. The man certainly was looking for scapegoats to vent his rage on. Melrick was smart enough to have retreated to the furthest edge away from the General.

"Your orders general?" She saluted. A lifetime of being a ranger had taught her military formality, although the need to use it seldom arose. Saluting was for distant commanders, not friends and family from the same farstrider lodge.

He looked at her for a moment before asking. "You have been near them the most, how much do you trust them?"

Caledra thought about her answer. Truth be told, she had only heard second hand reports from the soldiers. At the same time, the soldiers had slain Helcular. According to Marshal Redpath, the necromancer had plagued Southshore ever since king Terenas had been slain by his son. The necromancer had plagued the southern Hillsbrad foothills and had been responsible for the forsaken even securing tarren mill.

"Honestly, not much. The men here seem to love them well enough, but I have not seen any of their prowess first hand. Their captain seems driven enough to make something of his rabble."

"I do not see how that man can manage that. He seems like the most undisciplined of that sorry lot of things that call themselves warriors." General Garrick clearly seemed to think that the entire affair was a mistake.

"What would you do with them?"

"Me, nothing. They have taken the king's coin, and now they must fight. Sacking a forsaken settlement on the edge of their land is one thing. The Alliance will demand more of them. More than they can handle. I expect them to break when the time comes."

"So you can withhold their payment?"

"Of course. If they are being paid by the Alliance to fight, then fight they will, or they will die. By their swords or ours."

"Thank you general. May I take my leave? I have a home to return to in Stormwind."General Garrick looked at her, genuinely puzzled at her request.

"Has no one told you?" He asked, his voice full of surprise.

"Told me what?" Caledra's blood froze. No, it could not be.

"Anyone who carries sensitive Alliance material is conscripted into the war effort. I am surprised no one told you before you volunteered for this mission." His tone was completely neutral, as though he was stating a commonly known fact.

"What?" Caledra was flabbergasted. It had not been mentioned on the posters – at least not in a legible manner. She had thought it would be a week's assignment – two at most before she would return to Stormwind. Behind Garrick's back, Lieutenant Melrick's hand was on his head.

"Lieutenant Melrick has your commission papers here." The man sheepishly brought some official looking forms over. Caledra did not need to look at them to know they were in order. They were all countersigned and attested. Sunwell save her, she was really being conscripted into the alliance military.

"Welcome back to the Alliance forces, Captain Dreambreeze." General Garrick's voice was clipped and formal.

It was Lieutenant Melrick's turn to protest. "How does she get to be a captain while I am still a lieutenant?"

Caledra massaged her temples with her hand while Garrick explained why she was going to be a captain. She had served as a soldier and ranger for the last two hundred years. Being conscripted meant that she was now at the rank of Farstrider, which meant that for the alliance she would be a captain of scouts.

No, she had not wanted this job. Not here. This place was too close to Quel'thalas. Too many memories, most of them now bitter.

"Permission to seek transfer sir?" If this worked she could serve the alliance on Kalimdor, or south of the thandol span.

"Denied." Olivar Garrick's voice brooked no argument.

"May I know why?"

"You are needed here. I want you to keep an eye out on those soldiers and report back to me when they slip up. I will have the scoundrels hanging by the branches of the trees in Silvepine. That will teach those foreign scum to steal from good men and women of Lordaeron." There was no need for Caledra to ask another question or plead her case. The chain of command was clear. She would obey her orders, or she would hang, probably on the same tree as Erich. She turned to leave.

Theramore was looking like a more attractive option by the minute.

* * *

 _ **guest: Yes, I am personally looking forward to introducing Erich to orcs that are not Fun Fungi**_

 _ **CaptnDetergent: The biggest draw to WHFB for me was factions like the empire who lived in a world with magic and mythical monsters, and they thrived in it by working together and trusting each other to hold the line. It helps that WHFB straddles the line between GrimDark and NobleDark on occasion instead of going full sprint over the boundary like 40k does. I would personally recommend the Gotrek and Felix series. It is a great series of snapshots for the warhammer world.**_

 _ **Basileus: I am glad you enjoyed it.**_

 _ **DrachenEngel: Warcraft and warhammer aren't exactly history ;)**_


	11. Chapter 11

**The March of the Alliance**

* * *

 _Erich stared at the sky, watching the clouds go by slowly – almost lazily even. His ears were filled with a a strange buzzing that drowned out all noise in the universe. For a moment, he thought he could lay there forever, once the abominable noise died down out. After what seemed like an eternity, it did. It began to be replaced by the sounds of trumpets and shouts of men, hazy and indistinct. Then a voice from Erich's memory rang out, gruff and comforting. "Advance you sons of whores! I am not paying you to stand around looking at the carnage like a bunch of Estalian Heroes". Valdos, his mentor seemed to be in a perfectly fine mood right now. The battle seemed to be going well. Erich scrambled up and looked around taking stock of their section of the battlefield._

 _The minotaurs that had attempted to break and scatter the formation were dead. Some of the more enterprising soldiers had even cut their heads off just to be sure. The hundreds of beastmen that had followed their mightier leaders either lay dead or ran back into the cover of the trees. Like a plague of rats, they would scurry away at the first sign of defeat before rallying again to attack their foes in the back. The plan of the hastily assembled army to defend Pfeildorf was simple, to keep up the momentum and to scatter the brayherd that was marching upon the regional centre of the wool trade that passed through the southern empire and the vault._

 _A small complement of greatswords and State troopers from Nuln and the artillery train was the pride of this army. Masses of Free companies and mercenaries were making up most of the battle lines, while the Nuln Chapter of the Knight's Panther would provide the shock component of their little army. At the forefront of the army was a great mass of flagellants, terrifying to behold and utterly mad. During his years in Nuln, Erich had seen the fanatics regularly instigate riots against people who did not believe suitably in Sigmar. The city was an important centre for the Sigmarite faith, since it had the Great Cathedral of Nuln wherein perhaps the most devoted son of Sigmar lay. The legendary Emperor's tomb attracted the faithful from all over the empire. It was from there that the flagellants had walked, following another Comtemporary figure of legend._

 _It was whispered around camp fires that THE Luthor Huss led the Flagellants and a small cohort of Warrior priest aspirants to test their faith against the beastmen. Unlike most of the clergy of the Sigmarite church that Erich had seen, Luthor Huss was reported to live most of his life travelling the empire, to remote distances and largely forgotten villages, aiding them to fight against the Beastman threat. The creatures of chaos were a threat to mankind, but Luthor Huss believed in a more hands-on approach to eradicating the problem. His presence was certainly a boost to the morale of the flagellants, judging from the way they sang their hymns even as they fought in the middle of the thickest battle, their ragged cries for annihilation chilling the blood of friends and foes alike. Half naked and fully committed to meeting their end in the service of their god, Flagellants made for unsettling allies even at the best of times. It was perhaps for this reason that no wizard had deigned to help the threat to Pfeildorf. After all, no one wanted to be caught and burned alive by a violent mob that they were supposed to be helping._

 _Erich shuddered as he clutched his pendant of Myrmidia. The riots between Ulri ans and Sigmarites were bloody enough, but if they were to find out that he – a son of the empire – was worshipping a southern goddess, they would make him eat his entrails and make him praise the taste. Thankfully, the General in charge of the battle had kept the Tilean companies far away from the flagellants. Mad fanatics were certainly not a reliable body in the midst of battle._

 _Now the drums were beating at marching pace. The order to advance had been given, captain Valdos' scarred face set in a grim scowl. Erich stared over the dead body of the Minotaur that had come close to brutally ending his life. He had soiled himself but no one would care. Soldiers soiled themselves on the battlefield all the time. Dignity was ornamental on the field. When you were marching, fighting and running for a half a morning, you tended to get a good amount of exercise. When someone would die, their bowels would unclench anyway. As it was no one noticed as Erich walked up to the front of his detachment of pikemen he had been assigned to._

 _The standard bearer stood next to him, scarcely out of arms reach, but to his consternation, Erich could not make the man's face out. Shadows covered him, and the rows of pikemen behind him, making them shift subtly out of focus, as if he viewed them from a great distance. Shallya's blessings, had the monster hit him so hard that he was losing vision? It didn't matter. Right now the only thing that mattered was to focus. Focus on the now. Too much idle thinking would only lead to bad judgements in the present. It was a shame that he had learned this skill the hard way while growing up. Right now, they were to march upwards towards the forest. There was a small rise just ahead of their position that overlooked the positions of the still embattled flagellants. They were to hold themselves and establish a new front line there to engage the beastmen. The contignent Knights Panther would then administer the coup-de-main, destroying this threat. Even as he marched, Erich could see the columns of the knights forming up to their rear. Their Dwarf forged plate armour glinted in the sun, and their banner, the skin of an exotic animal they had picked up during the Arabyan crusades told everyone where the knights were going to be._

 _The Knights needed wide open spaces for their charge. It meant that the mercenaries would be deployed in depth around an on the small rise instead of the more flexible squares they would prefer. If the knight could not successfully rout the beastmen that would hammer them, their line would break apart as soldiers began to lose hope. Valdos had grunted but kept his opinion to himself in the command tent on the night before. Nobles seldom took the advice of mercenaries seriously. Erich believed that the bastards wanted them dead because then they would have to pay them less._

 _Valdos evidently thought the same. His plan was to form a square on top of the hill and keep his men intact. If the worst happened, the beastmen would swarm around the hillock trying to kill them all, and present excellent targets for the assembled firepower that had been dragged from the armouries and forges of Nuln. Beastmen had no concepts of reserves or pinning the enemy. Their brayherd would turn to the pike square as a target and present themselves to withering volleys of cannon fire and attacks by the rest of the army. Of course, the entire plan would also bring them uncomfortably close to the flagellants._

 _Erich's vision came and went. During their march, at several times, he could easily make out the grooves around the drummer's straps or the shine of the brass stopper on the top of the standard. At other times, he could barely see the ground at all, seeing only the vaguest outlines and shapes in front, around and behind him. At least the small seemed to be in focus. He would need a Doktor when the battle was done. Thankfully, Valdos' company was the first one there. It was the strongest defensive position around them. Breaking formation, the men scrambled up the hillock, making sure that they were all in the safest possible place. It would take a while to sort them out. If the beastmen attacked now, they would be a mob of tired men, not a fully functional army._

 _Ranald must have blessed them, because the beastmen were nowhere to be seen. Captain Valdos shouts and threats quickly got the men together in something resembling an orderly battle line. There, they were as safe and secure as they could be in the midst of battle. Erich tried to sheathe his sword and realised that he had dropped his scabbard. It could be anywhere between the rise and the the part of the line where the minotaur had nearly broken through their lines. Now he was going to stand around awkwardly with his sword held until he found another scabbard. It was not like Erich hated to draw his sword. It was a beautiful weapon, of dwarf make that was a family heirloom. No doubt his father was missing it even now. No doubt he was thinking_

 _An ingrate of a son, stealing the family's heritage to go gallivanting around the world as if he was some sort of heroic champion and not a lazy skinny coward._

 _Erich was not so skinny anymore. Months of marching and fighting had begun to fill out his muscles admirably, and one did not reach the rank of First Sergeant in Alberto Valdos' company if they were lazy. On the other hand, the term coward struck with him the most. After all, he had run away from his Father's residence stealing his most treasured heirloom. Maybe after the battle was over, he could return his father's sword to him in Pfeildorf. On the other hand, it was actually being used here instead of being mounted on a mantelpiece. Maybe his black hearted father would have been more satisfied at Erich's skill in combat if his son had been trained to use an Estalian Rapier instead of the knightly broadsword that he had fought with. Or more likely be infuriated that his son was using a disgusting mix of street brawling and stabbing to survive in combat. That was certainly unlike a knight and a nobleman._

 _"Sergeant Peiper, report." Valdos' growl came from the rear._

 _Erich walked through a hole in his flank to meet his captain and took off his cap. "The men are in position sir. I will have them staking the approach within the hour."_

 _"Casualty report."_

 _"A dozen men dead or near enough from the charging cows. None from the march." Joking about the foe made the losses more surreal, and less painful._

 _"What about yourself son?" Valdos' voice softened as he asked Erich that._

 _My head feels like it is on fire and I am having trouble seeing._

 _"Doing fine, Captain. No broken bones or anything."_

 _"Do you recall what you did back there?" Valdos pointed back to the place of their initial deployment, far in the distance. Erich squinted as he looked there. A mass of beastmen bodies with a few Tilean pikemen thrown in greeted him._

 _"No sir I do not."_

 _The big cow told me to wake up for breakfast,_ he vaguely recalled.

 _"You hamstrung that big cow and shot it in the back of the head with your pistol. Very heroic young man. You keep at it and you will either be the next Borgio – or be dead."_

 _That was odd. Erich did not recall any of it._

 _"So does that mean I get a raise?" He asked, half joking and half hopeful._

 _The Captain's scarred face burst into a grin, coupled with the scars and eyepatch, it made Valdos look like a feral wolf. "You will get a raise when I am dead." The grin had vanished he started speaking_

 _"Anything else sir?"_

 _"Why are you holding your sword in your hand, you need your raise that soon?" Valdos' voice was gruff enough that erich did not know if it was a joke or spoken in earnest._

 _"I lost it sir, when I hamstrung the Minotaur." Valdos merely snorted in return._

 _"Back to your positions then First sergeant. Raise an alarm if the beastmen or the flagellants try to bother you."_

 _Erich walked back to his position at the forefront of his detachment. That was odd. He was sure the had done nothing like it. The last thing he remembered was the Minotaur telling him that he was going to miss breakfast in a perfectly understandable Tilean accent. That was certainly odd. Beastmen never spoke about breakfast. In fact they could barely speak and they mostly roared and made awful parodies of human speech. If he had killed a Minotaur with his own hands, he was certainly no coward. He wondered what Von Peiper the senior would say about that. Probably just snort and ignore it._

 _The men meanwhile were at rest, standing or sitting around in formation with their pikes buried into the ground. As far as resting went, this was much better than to stand around with weapons at the ready. If the beastmen attacked, they would be in formation in a minute or so. Despite the apparent disarmament of the soldiers, there was a thick amount of tension in the air. Right in front of them stood the flagellant horde, screaming their lungs out and praising Sigmar. There was no grace in their voices, no dignity in their chanting. They howled and raved like lunatics, looking more akin to the beastmen they fought against instead of the humans they were supposed to be. Seeing them lash themselves when they had no foes to fight made Erich's blood run cold. They were no different than the servants of the dark gods they fought against. If someone was to ask him the definition of mad henceforth, Erich would point them to the nearest Flagellant._

 _In contrast with the hunched and bent posture of the mass of flagellants that lay before them. A half dozen figures stood upright, silently looking over the looming eaves of the forest. Even from this distance, Erich could see who among them would have been Luthor Huss himself. The figure stood apart from the other five, the closest to the trees and looked straight ahead. It was too far away to make details, but the mass of flagellants and and the other five figures kept a respectful distance from it. Even as Erich watched, one of the figures began making it's way towards them. He stood up, ready to address or challenge this bald fanatic if he dared to close._

 _Come close he did. Erich could see the man clearly enough. It seemed that his eyesight was now returning back to normal._

 _"Halt, who goes there." His mouth issued the challenge._

 _"A brother aspirant from the cult of Sigmar. What god do you worship." The man was well dressed, and carried a small and vicious looking hammer. In his other hand, he held a tome. He was dressed in robes that covered his entire body and the only thing visible apart from his head were his thickly armoured hands. His bald, determined face was visible quite clearly and seemed familiar. A sense of Deja vu washed over Erich._

 _"I worship Myrmidia, Goddess of War, Sciences and the Fine Arts." Erich replied. The goddess of battle looked after her own._

 _The man frowned, seemingly troubled. After a minute, he spoke. "Where do you come from outlander?" The way the last word was spoken was quite clear. Erich's accent marked him as a man of the Empire. A man of the empire worshipping anything other than Sigmar would easily rile up fanatics. A warrior priest in training was nothing else if not fanatical._

 _"From Pfeildorf, compatriot", Erich replied clutching his sword._

 _The man looked at him for a moment. Erich had expected fury, but only saw disappointment. He shook his head. Suddenly, the way he tilted his head tugged at Erich's memory. He had seen this man before, of that he was certain._

 _"I will pray for your transgressions, brother compatriot." The man slowly began to walk down the approach and back among the mass of flagellants._

 _Typical Sigmarite fanatic. "You do that." Erich retorted, his voice carrying after the man._

 _He turned to look, and seeing his profile, Erich realised with a flash who he was. "One more thing, Captain Erich"Brother – Aspirant Phillip's voice rang out, curiously turning into the lilting and beautiful voice of a maiden._ "General Garrick wants you in his command tent right now."

The world faded into the shadows that had been plaguing him.

* * *

Eric's woke with a start. Where was he? An elven face loomed over him, beautiful to behold and heart shaped. The ears were nearly thrice as long though. "What, he managed to say before she dragged him from the seat where he had been dreaming and thrust his cap into his hand. He managed to say "What" before she pushed him out of tent and into the middle of the bustling camp.

His soldiers had been given their own positions in the camp. Men huddled around campfires roasting cattle and preparing for another night's food. Despite the annoyingly high handed nature of General Garrick, the man at least let them eat well. He was not niggardly with his supplies. A few of them hailed him, asking him to share their repast. He shook his head and followed Caledra. They had been marching for four days and were approaching what Erich understood as enemy territory.

The march was mind numbingly dull for the most part, and for that he was glad. If they weren't fighting, they were still being paid. This was the most important part of a campaign. Movement. Every aspect of the battle revolved around movement. Movement of an enemy harassing flanks. Movement of soldiers securing a better position. Movement of the artillery train to better firing positions, and a myriad of other things that began with an army on the march.

While pontificating on the importance of movement, Caledra was leading him towards the centre of the camp. He saw dozens of tents with soldiers milling about. They seemed to be much more heavily armoured than Erich's men. Full plate armour was in abundance on racks and the few soldiers who patrolled the camp seemed as armoured as Inner Circle Knights. This kingdom must be extremely advanced – or extremely rich – to supply rank and file soldiers with full plate. Just to pass the time, he yelled at a group of soldiers who were playing dice, "Where are you from?" They looked at him with a bit of surprise, before one of the youngest ones replied. "From Lakeshire." Erich could not resist asking, "They have beautiful women in Lakeshire boy?" He was rewarded with the man blushing. Erich was gone before he could stammer out a reply.

Caledra looked at him with a bit of shock before asking, "What was THAT?"

Erich grinned, "Just a bit of socialising."

"You can't go asking about what _kind_ of women they have back in their homes?"

"Why not?"

"Because it is not proper. If Garrick hears of this, he will probably set you to peeling potatoes."

"What is wrong with peeling potatoes, I would be in the safest part of the camp, and get paid all the same."

"Its dishonourable."

"Is it? A good cook in the middle of the army is always well protected by soldiers. No one wants their potatoes badly peeled."

She stared at him in disbelief for a moment before rolling her eyes and leading him.

They were now passing by the artillery train. Dozens of Dwarfs and Halflings ran about, checking their blackpowder stores and making sure their devices were secured. In comparison to the artillery of the old world, they seemed a lot more bare and functional. The bores of the mortars were big enough for Erich to easily put his head in. At least, he assumed they were mortars. The wide barrels, short length and direction they were pointed in seemed to make them feel like they were.

As far as he knew, halflings were only good for cooking, eating and shooting with their bows. Here it seemed that they were on par with the dwarfs when it came to maintaining weapons of war. Instead of their customary slothfulness, the little buggers were everywhere, arguing with their dwarf counterparts and tinkering with their devices. Even the dwarfs felt a little off. Every dwarf he had met in the old world was gruff, unsmiling and dour enough to turn ale bad. Then they would drink it before growling about how humans had bad ale. In contrast the dwarfs here laughed, and joked. One of them even whistled at Caledra when she walked by him. The entire thing felt wrong, almost as if he had woken up in another world.

"What is up with the little folks?" He asked Caledra drawing closer to her.

"Who, the dwarfs? Ironforge is providing us with the artillery we will need to defeat the Horde. Do not worry. The dwarf are at home with their weapons." She said, eyeing the receding artillery train.

"No, I was talking about the shorter people, halflings."

"Halflings?" Caledra was puzzled for a moment and stopped, cocking an eye at Erich. Then realisation dawned. "Oh, the gnomes! They are some of the best inventors and mechanics on Azeroth. Their homeland was destroyed by a Trogg invasion so they began to stay with the different nations of the Alliance. They are rather adorable if a little bit precocious."

Erich's mind was full of questions, each more pressing than the last. Gnomes? Azeroth? Ironforge? Troggs? He replied with a curt, "I see." He would need to ask her more about each and every one of them later.

By this time, they had reached the encampments of the knights. The warhorses were stabled and were busy eating hay. While no expert at horseflesh, Erich could not help but get awed by the beasts. They were taller than him by a foot, and even stripped from their armour, the beasts looked regal. He doubted that even the snootiest of Bretonnian nobles could claim a fault with these beasts.

He stopped. One of the grooms was feeding the creatures. He wore a tabard with a stylised lion's head in gold on a body of blue. It was strikingly visible even from a distance, and was the same banner that was present on every other tent in the encampment and on the watch posts on the outskirts of the camp itself.

"May I feed the horse?" He asked politely. The groom looked at him for a moment. Erich repeated himself slowly, stressing every other syllable. The man seemed to understand. He nodded in agreement. Erich had an apple in his pocket that he offered to the proud specimen in front of him. It considered it for a moment before eating it and neighing it's agreement with the taste. Seemingly happy, it stayed still as Erich patted the horse's neck.

"What are you doing?"

"Admiring a fine warhorse. Why?"

"The general has requested the presence of all his captains. That includes you AND me!"

"You are a captain now? I thought you just did paperwork in the city."

"I was a ranger for a century before I went to work in Stormwind." She replied.

"Well congratulations on your promotion then."

Caledra merely huffed and rolled her eyes in reply before continuing the walk. Long ears or not, she was definitely stuck up enough to be a real elf.

General Garrick's tent was large enough to pass for a house. The pavillion was guarded by dismounted knights who marched with their swords at the ready. Banners were planted around it like saplings in a garden. The entire thing smelled of pomp and ceremony. The soldiers asked them to halt. Caledra gave them her sword and motioned for Erich to do the same. He gave them every weapon he had on their belt. There was no need to mention the knife in his boot. Even as they gave away their weapons, he saw a bird fly into the tent. The guards did not even flinch.

Erich followed Caledra as she walked into the tent. The interior of the tent was well lit. Candles and lanterns lit the room in a warm, homely glow. There was a coat of arms that was hard to see in the light. He would have to take a note of it later. There were a lot of people inside the tent, crowded along the table. Caledra beckoned him to join him on a seat next to her. Even as he sat down, the crowd dispersed to return to their seats. Erich noticed that he was seated opposite to a smiling dwarf who looked at him with as much curiosity as he looked at her. A female dwarf in a war council. This was turning out to be quite a unique experience. Maybe after he was back in Tilea he could write a book like that Felix Jager fellow was doing.

"Captain Von Peiper, how nice of you to join us." General Garrick's voice was even. He seemed to have a much better temperament than the last time he met.

"Captain Dawnbreeze informed me that you had requested my presence, and I hastened to obey."

Caledra made to translate what he had said before realising Erich had said so in Common.

"I see that you learned how to speak Common then?" The general's voice was still neutral, even stiffly formal.

"Captain Dawnbreeze has been hard at work teaching me how to speak, among other things. She figured it would be better that I understood the language. I hope you will excuse my poor vocabulary."

"What other things?"

"While of a very fun nature, I do not believe they are appropriate for a War council between captains." Erich finished with a wink and a smile.

Caledra stared at him for a moment before his insinuation sat in. Then the stare turned into a glare. The dwarf sitting on the seat opposite to him burst out laughing.

"Wait, what? I have done absolutely nothing... General, I can explain this -" Caledra stammered.

General Garrick waved his hands imperiously before saying. "It makes absolutely no difference what you two have been up to." He paused before taking a breath. Then he continued

"Gentlemen, Druid Moonclaw has returned with reports from Tirisfal and Silverpine forest. If you would share it with the council, we will be up to speed."

One of the captains taking the seat got up. He was taller than Erich, and his skin was purple. His eyes glimmered with a silver light. He wore robes that were of a simple brown with a mantle of leaves, A crown of brambles and a staff of gnarled wood completed his outfit. Erich was irresistably reminded of Amber wizards. They lived in the wilds, appearing only to communicate with their brethren at certain times of the year. Was this creature on of their order? Then he noticed the ears. Much like Caledra's, they were long and pointed. Unlike hers, they were angled more horizontally. Was this amber wizard an elf? In the soft glow of the candles, the appearance combined to make him look sinister. Erich gulped.

"The forsaken are on the march. They withdrew from Gilneas completely and are marching back to Tirisfal glade. At the same time, an army from the undercity is on the field and they will be joining up around the borders between Tirisfal and Silverpine forest. I reckon there are around three thousand forsaken that are going to be ready to march down towards us. It would seem the destruction of Tarren Mill has them confused and seeking to combine their forces. Pyrewood is all but abandoned. Only a few forsaken remain to guard the town and their prisoners." Erich could have listened to the elf speak for hours. His voice was low and extremely melodious.

General Garrick spoke. In contrast, his voice sounded shrill. "Ladies and Gentlemen, it would seem that the actions of the previous month have turned the tide of battle. I have reports here that say that the Horde is falling back the might of our combined armies in Kalimdor and Ashenvale is being liberated. The Forsaken are falling back from their invasion of Gilneas as well. The tide of this war is turning.

We have the opportunity to end the threat of the Horde in the Eastern Kingdoms. The Gilneas liberation front is harassing the forsaken supply lines and as such they have left most of their heavy equipment back north of the Thoradin wall. If we take Pyrewood, we can destroy their equipment in detail and set deal the Horde a crippling blow.

Tomorrow by noon, we will reach Pyrewood village. Once we liberate it, we will march north and engage the forsaken around Fenris Keep. Once we are victorious, we shall take it for our own and keep pushing forwards.

Captain Hulda, your siege train is tasked with destroying the forsaken equipment. Everyone else will follow me and we shall engage the Forsaken forces around Fenris Keep. After defeating them there, we can continue to push into the Hinterlands of the Capital city itself and besiege it. Make no mistake, the liberation of Lordaeron is close." General Garrick continued on about the lost glory of Lordaeron and how they would restore it.

Erich meanwhile studied the map that he had been given. Their army was big enough. At the same time, the land was heavily forested. General Garrick's plan was straightforward. That was good. Complicated campaigns were disastrous. There was only one short problem that he had not mentioned.

The man was still continuing about the greatness of this land and the Alliance. Every other persons eyes had glazed over. The dwarf sitting opposite to him was staring at him with interest. When he caught her gaze, he smiled. She smiled and winked in return.

"General Garrick, I have a question." It still bothered Erich that no one had asked him about the basics of the campaign.

Garrick's eyes shot up towards him. Everyone else turned to look. Caledra stared at him with a bit of trepidation. The dwarf's smile grew larger.

"What is it Von Peiper." Garrick's voice was testy. The man certainly did not like being interrupted.

"What about our supply lines?"

"We have enough supplies with us."

"I mean, about the extended campaign you are talking about. Pardon me, but you mentioned besieging a city. That process could take years. How are you planning on supplying our forces during this escapade?"

"This _escapade_ has been sanctioned by greater minds than yours mercenary." Garrick's face was turning red.

"And yet, you never mentioned anything about supplies and how you will sustain this army in the field."

"Every Forsaken force between here and Fenris Keep has been recalled back to the Capital city. Once we crush them, there will be no threat to our supply lines." Garrick replied. He was about to continue his speech when Erich interrupted him again.

"The land seems forested and there is only a single route to actually supply us. Small parties of raiders could easily disrupt our supply lines and starve the besieging army out." The eyes shifted between Garrick and Erich as the two continued their debate.

"And what would you suggest, _captain_ Von Peiper?"

"A supply depot in Pyrewood would allow us to reduce the strain on the logistics chain that will stretch from here to Southshore. We can then take the campaign slowly and steadily, advancing and destroying the Undead in detail."

"And continue this campaign for years? A hammer blow now will swing the campaign decisively in our favour and we can use our momentum to attack the capital itself directly." The man's voice was getting louder.

"That's very good and all, general, but what happens if we do not win the decisive victory you want against the Forsaken? I do not think that Captain Hulda will be able to join us in time for the battle if she is destroying the enemy's heavy equipment North of the wall."

"We do not need it to win."

"And what happens if you don't win?"

"Are you a defeatist mercenary?"

"No, I am asking you about contingencies."

Garrick laughed. The tension in the room depleted. "I see what you mean. You wish to act like a coward and hide under the pretence of a supply depot while you continue to swindle the treasury for money." He chuckled before continuing. "I see you now von Peiper. You are as cowardly as a goblin." The tension in the room returned.

Every pair of eyes was focused on Erich. Uncomfortably, he was reminded of his time in the Nuln Academy when he would ask a particularly stupid question and be subjected to the mockery of his tutors and fellow students.

"I can see your ploy. Stay at the rear. Turn Pyrewood into a supply hub. Once we have crushed the forsaken, I will have the king know of your cowardice and thieving nature. Your presence will no longer be required in the campaign thence. Until then, you can pretend to be a General and build our supply depots for us, if your shoddy forces can accomplish that."

* * *

Caledra had expected Erich to apologise. That was what any rational captain would do when castigated by their commanding officer. Instead, her eyes widened with shock as she heard Erich say. "Very well general. I will hold the village of Pyrewood. I wish you the best with your decisive battle to retake Lordaeron." He smiled.

On the seat opposite to him, Captain Hulda Stoutiron burst out laughing at the entire scene unfolding in front of her.

* * *

 _ **everyone: I am very happy that my story is being actively read and followed by so many people. When I started writing this, I was afraid that I was going to write a dreadfully boring story that was going nowhere. So far it seems that you guys seem to like my story from what little I can tell, and the amount of people following inspires me to write even more. Thank you for all the support. If you have any suggestions about the lorebreaking stuff, do let me know. I strive to keep it as close to lore as possible, but given the depth of both the settings, sometimes I have to bend the rules a little.**_

 _ **Solarblaster: Apart from Serra, no one else has an idea how far away from home they are. All they notice is some form of idiosyncracies like female soldiers, elves having bigger ears and everyone having heavier armour.**_

 _ **Daspeas: keep reading to find out :P**_

 _ **Carre: Thank you. I wanted to keep this fic a little grounded. The more exotic dogs of war races would certainly have fun to write but I struggle enough to euclidate the differences between men of the empire and Tilea as is. Maybe in a different story later down the line.**_


	12. Chapter 12

**Rear Echelons**

* * *

As far as villages went, Erich had to admit that he had seen better. He had grown up in Pfeildorf, once former capital of Solland and now an important trade town in the empire. The villages around it had once been proper towns, that had been walled and guarded. Their population had reduced over the years as people died or left for more safer lands. Now they were villages living in the relics of their days of glory. It was a sorry and comical sight like a halfling wearing a dwarf helmet.

Pyrewood village felt the same to him. An overwhelming sense of decay seemed to permeate in the streets and the could sense place had been inhabited to it's fullest extent once, all the crumbling buildings filled with living people with their hopes and dreams. Now empty window panes and darkened and bare interiors were all that remained. Erich ducked inside a building one final time before he went about his business. A pair of sleeping bats greeted him, flying out of the house, shrieking, forcing Erich to tumble back out momentarily. For his diligence, he was rewarded with a look inside the abandoned house. On the inside it was filthy, piled with dust and other refuse. Broken furniture lined the floor and everything that had not been bolted had been looted. An aura of mourning permeated the building. Erich had come across corpses picked apart by carrion birds and beastmen during his continuing career. This house was as dead as any of them. He quietly took his leave. Something far more palatable was happening at the northern side of the crumbling village.

Erich now had the opportunity to see the Alliance army leave. Marching as part of an army was boring and mind numbing, not to mention physically demanding. Watching an army march was exciting, titillated the senses and could be done in the comfort of a stool underneath a tree. If nothing else, it would be a sight worth seeing. Armies on the march were always a sight to behold. He still remembered seeing the Countess' guard march into Pfeildorf when the fun loving Emmanuelle von Liebwitz realised that there was more to her domain than the city of Nuln. It was a striking sight, to see the Standard of Nuln – a lion holding a pair of scales – at the head of a procession of hundreds of men wearing full plate, escorting the Countess' carriage. They had seemed another race compared to the humble, grey clad Pfeildorf town guard.

He was not disappointed for was certainly a spectacular sight. The soldiers of the Alliance excelled at putting on a show if nothing else. The knights had marched first at the head of the column, resplendent in their plate and barded warhorses. A hundred men, no doubt in the prime of their life, covered head to toe excellent plate armour that glinted in the early morning dawn. Armed with lances, swords and shields with the heraldry that Erich had seen. They reminded him irresistibly of Knights of the Inner Circle, the military elite of the Empire. Their pennants and standards fluttered in the wind as they slowly proceeded out of the town. Bretonnians wrote ballads about their brave heroic knights banding together to go on Errantry wars. Even their flowery language would fail to encompass what Erich saw as the mounted warriors marched forth on their fine warhorses. Despite knowing next to nothing about the Alliance, a lump went up in his throat as he watched the knights leave.

Next came the ordered companies of footsoldiers. Like the knights they too were armoured head to toe in full plate, their bodies all but invisible. While their armour was less ornate than the knights, it was still on par with what smaller brotherhoods of knights in the empire were equipped with. They marched well enough for the most part, but Erich noted that they were equipped entirely with swords and shields. Tough heavy infantry, great for assaulting defensive positions, but they would tire out on the march. He wondered how they could even see in their helmets.

Two different varieties of standards dominated the ranks of the footsoldiers. One was the aforementioned lion stylized on a field of blue. The other was a blue two headed eagle rampant on a field of pure white. From what he had seen of Garrick on that day, the man wore the latter design over his armour. It would seem that Stormwind was the lion, while Lordaeron was the eagle rampant. As long as he kept the men of the lion happy, he would remain in their good graces.

"Quite a sight eh Signor?" The young tilean sergeant, Luigi had walked up to see the army march. Most of Erich's men were resting. They were happy that they had been given the task of constructing a supply depot in the village. General Garrick might scoff at supplies, but keeping an army in the field was the most demanding part of a big campaign. An expeditionary force could easily be cut off and starve to death rather than be overrun by their foes. The men of the empire had often learned this the hard way when they had tried to cleanse the Drakwald in ages past. Small blockhouses in settlements kept roads and lines of communication open. Communication and supplies were key to extended control over a newly conquered land. Of course, from the perspective of the men, they would be getting rich while sitting comfortably at the rear lines.

"Yes indeed it is First Sergeant. Indeed it is." The two men watched from the shade as the lines of the foot soldiers were followed by lighter columns of troops. Erich saw dozens of men and women armed with bows, crossbows and gunpowder accoutred in lighter armour, mostly a mixture of leather and chain mail. In contrast with the infantry and the cavalry, they almost seemed shabby in comparison.

Erich understood why Garrick was so angry at him. Compared to the forces of the Alliance, Erich's Regiment looked downright shabby. Their weapons were not as ornate, their armour was largely simple munitions plate and their helmets were not as all encompassing. It did not help that he had first found them spending their time at southshore whoring and drinking their money away. Bretonnians Nobles often had the same problems with mercenaries. To their prim and proper way of warfare, infantry was an afterthought and they loathed the fact that mercenaries could often stand their own ground without needing help from the knightly cavalry. It seemed that the people of Lordaeron were not so different after all.

At the absolute rear came the wizards. Erich did not even need to see their glowing staves to understand what they were. Their lack of military discipline, garish clothing and complete nonchalance gave them away. It seemed that no matter what or who they were, mages were always known for their eccentricities. One of the halfling-like gnomes was part of the entourage, her bright pink hair neatly tied into pigtails. She walked with the rest of the mages, cracking jokes and engaging in banter. Her big head made her look like a child running around playing at being a grown up. It was all he could do not to laugh.

Curiously, he noted a small flock of birds fly over the head of the army, back and forth as if keeping an eye on them. Carrion birds were usually clever, knowing that marching men mean battles. Battles meant corpses and corpses meant food. Curiously enough the birds seemed to be shadowing the army from head to tail, flying in ever extending circles as if keeping an eye out for foes. Amber wizards were known to do something similar when they bewitched the beasts of the wild to keep an eye out for gathering beastmen brayherds. Not that it would be useful. The land was thickly forested. Small forces could shadow their march and easily ambush them at a turn in the road or a place among the trees where the knights would be useless.

Erich kept watching the army march until Luigi got bored and left. He was still watching as the clouds of dust they had kicked up when the the rest of the camp woke up and got about their daily business.

* * *

Caledra stalked around the outskirts of the village taking in the sights. A crumpled note regarding a Gilnean messenger now burned in a small brazier she had found hanging on the wall. It was signed by Captain Stoutiron, who seemed to be running into difficulties on her assigned mission. The note was short and urgent. The messenger needed more forces to deal with the forsaken who were holed up between Pyrewood and the Greymane wall.

The army had almost disappeared up the winding road, the tramp of their moots fading into the distance. In it's place the chirping of the birds and the rustling leaves seemed silent. From what she had heard about Lordaeron, the lands around andorhal had been hit severely by the scourge plague. The land, once the former breadbasket of Lordaeron had withered and died, even as the restless dead had clambered and risen from their graves. The only places not blighted last year had largely been held by the scarlet crusade, a faction of humans so zealous that they killed any they even suspected of being undead. After northrend, the highlord Tirion Fordring had returned carrying the ashbringer and rallied the faithful to his side to begin the long and gruelling task of rebuilding Lordaeron .Even the Cenarion Circle, according to their emissary in Stormwind, were busy setting up a base camp outside Andorhal to see if the land could be healed. She prayed to the light that they were successful in their endeavours. Her orders were to stay here, In Pyrewood village,and take command of the Supply depot that the mercenaries were setting up.

She was torn about the human. On one hand Erich seemed like pleasant enough company when the two were conversing, his manners a mixture of formality that noble humans were taught since birth and the easy going banter of a mercenary. During her stay in Stormwind, she had dealt with several adventurers and swords-for-hires. They seemed pleased to talk to a person instead of killing them. She had always assumed it was because of the gold she would disburse, but it seemed that the feeling ran deep among mercenaries. In a way, it was similar to her experiences as a farstrider. The best part of a scouting mission was returning from her patrols, seeing the spires of her lodge safely in the distance, and returning to the quiet peace of her quarters knowing that her work was done for the moment. She lived in the moment, and cherished the small things that life gave her. It was something she had lost in Stormwind.

At the same time, the human's behaviour two days ago had been atrocious to say the least. The things that he had insinuated about the two of them made her want to throttle him the next time they were in close proximity. Jokes with underlings was one thing, but implying that they had sexual relations in an offhand manner in front of a ranking general was crass in the extreme, and infuriating. She had noticed the other captains snicker at her when she left after the meeting. To top it off, in comparison with the Alliance forces deployed to invade Lordaeron, his mercenaries seemed shabby in comparison. It was probably a good idea to place them in the rear where they would not derail General Garrick's carefully laid plans to liberate Lordaeron.

Erich was watching the army disappear over a bend in the road, eyes wistful. Caledra walked up over to him. The human had not noticed her. In a few brisk steps she walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around startled and looked at her.

"Hey, Caledra, how - "

Her slap took him by surprise. A century of practice as a farstrider meant that she was extremely nimble in her movements if she wanted to. Erich did not even register her hand until it had smacked him across his cheek. He yelped in surprise and recoiled from her in surprise.

"What the he-" Erich's eyes narrowed as he studied her face. Then he understood.

"I probably deserved that, didn't I?" If there was a rhetorical question ever asked, it was this one.

Caledra nodded, continuing to glare at Erich. He squirmed under her gaze. After a minute, she stopped with her death stare. He recovered his composure.

"So, that was it?"

She turned around with her hand raised. He raised his hands to protect his face, leaving his midsection and groin fully exposed. It would be very easy to knock down Erich Von Peiper out if she wanted to. Taking a deep breath instead, Caledra said. "No, there is more. We have a bit of a problem. Come with me."

Caledra walked over to the largely gutted town hall. It was still full of cobwebs and dirt but it had a table in it. She supposed it was as good a place as any to set up command in. A few soldiers from Stormwind had taken the liberty of getting a half dozen chair across it, and even now they were busy sweeping out some of the rooms. Given a week's worth of cleaning, this place would be habitable for the living.

A map of silverpine forest lay among the table. Blue pins marked where the army would reach by the time they would begin to set up camp. Fenris keep was a three day march away from Pyrewood village, largely due to the relatively narrow road and forested terrain. Idly, she wondered how exposed the army would be to march straight northwards before it got ambushed. Sylvanas Windrunner would not let an army march into her hinterlands without a challenge. The only person she did not recognise in the room was a man who wore clothes in the gilnean fashion.

A quick glance at him told her of his noble bearing. He knew how to hold himself straight, even in the muck and dust covered clothes he wore. Shoulder length brown hair that was matted and a moustache with a goatee completed his look of a nobleman fallen upon hard times. His single eye took in Caledra and Erich eagerly.

"Are you the commander of this force?"

"Yes." Both Erich and Caledra spoke up at the same time. Then they looked at each other

"What are you doing you imbecile?" Caledra hissed.

"Answering that man's questions. What are you doing?" Erich replied coolly. His cheek was still red from the slap earlier.

"I am in command of Pyrewood." She replied.

"Well he did not ask us about Pyrewood did he? He asked about this military force. I lead it, unless you fancy yourself to be commanding my boys." He was trying to undercut her again. By the Sunwell, she would happily drown Erich in Lordamere if he kept this up in front of strangers.

"And Captain Stoutiron leads the artillery train. I have been put in command of Pyrewood and that includes it's garrison, which in turn includes you." Her voice was now murderous.

"Yes, she is in command. Do continue with your message my good sir." Erich snapped back to look at the man, who seemed nonplussed at the strange way the conversation was turning. He cleared his throat and continued.

"There are a hundred or so forsaken troops tightly holed up north of the Greymane wall. It seems that the Banshee Queen is retreating from Gilneas and Silverpine with all haste, leaving most of her heavy equipment in the lurch. It will be a great boost to the Alliance's war efforts and Gilneas' security if we can destroy them."

"What seems to be the problem?"

"The forsaken are heavily dug in, and the artillery train led by Captain Stoutiron is too far out of range to destroy the position effectively. It overlooks a large section of relatively open ground. We attempted to link up with the captain but the forsaken turned their plague weapons upon us." The man _growled_ as he said that.

"Why haven't you retreated from the woods and attempted to link up with Captain Stoutiron by passing through Pyrewood." Caledra asked. The woods would mask them and allow them to redeploy with relative ease.

Erich spoke. "Because these resistance fighters are the ones that are pinning them in their little redoubt. Once they retreat the Forsaken will be safe to retreat with their weapons south of the wall. If you think a small redoubt is a big problem to assault head on, large fortifications will be a nightmare."

The Gilnean nodded sagely. "He speaks the truth. We need forces to guard the artillery train so that it can move into range and start destroying the Redoubt."

"And that is why he asked who the leader of the forces was, not of the Pyrewood supply depot." Erich smiled as he finished his sentence.

Caledra squinted at the map for a moment before asking. "What sort of forsaken forces are holed up in the redoubt?"

The gilnean replied, " A hundred odd soldiers led by a squad of death guard and an abomination. They are supported heavily by at least eight meat wagons and plague catapults that allows them to dominate any large force advancing on their location. My lady, we need aerial support if we even have a chance of destroying the fortification with ease."

Caledra frowned. Ironforge was too far away and nearly every Flying machine being produced was slated for use in a top secret Alliance project codenamed S _kyfire_. Besides she was not authorised to call in air support.

Erich meanwhile frowned at the map looking at the pins. He procured a magnifying glass on the table and took a very close look at the pin that marked Captain Stoutiron's position. "Is this map to scale?" He asked. "It does not matter." He murmured to himself. Caledra's and the Gilnean's head perked up at that. It was probably the oddest question she had been asked about maps.

His inspections done, he clapped his hands like a child who had solved a puzzle. It was certainly consternating.

"How many forces do you have my good man?" He asked conversationally, as though he was at a tavern chatting with an acquaintance.

"A hundred or so." The Gilnean looked at Erich warily.

"Can they sneak in and destroy the siege weapons if we manage to distract them?"

"Yes, certainly. We have enough seafourium and dynamite to blow them all to smithereens." The prospect of violence seemed to make the Gilnean happy.

"Now here's the plan." Erich took a quill from his hat and found a sheaf of parchment. Caledra wondered what he was doing for a moment before she recognized the quill in his hand. It was the enchanted one.

The paper was full by the time he withdrew his hand. He passed it over to the Gilnean who read it for a good time, and then reread it again. Then he muttered, "Blimey, that is just crazy enough to work just fine." His grin was positively wolfish.

Erich passed the paper on to Caledra. To her eyes, it was written in a fine Thalassian script.

 _Our attack will be simple. The Militia will hide in the woods and keep the Undead pinned down from retreating southwards. Captain Stoutiron's battery will advance into artillery range and begin to bombard the redoubt while my force will be in the rear. Their job is providing a screen to the battery once the enemy takes our bait. The enemy will either be forced to abandon their position and run into the woods, or seeing an unguarded artillery battery shelling them, try to close the distance as fast as they can. At this point we will engage them and keep them pinned. At this point the militia can storm the camp and destroy their siege equipment. Then they can join us and crush the flanked and fixed undead force. It should not be too difficult. Any questions?_

 _Also, what is dynamite and seaforium?_

It was surprisingly coherent. The man had literally put his thoughts to paper in a way so organised that most petitioners would feel inadequate. Despite herself Caledra had to admit it was certainly ambitious. This act alone would ensure that the forsaken South of Greymane wall in Gilneas would be cut off from any land reinforcements. Most of Gilneas' naval infrastructure had been destroyed in the cataclysm.

Still there were doubts in her mind. "What makes you think the forsaken will take the bait?"

"Because Captain Stoutiron will provide them with the most pressing of bait, one that bites back at the prey." Erich's tone, and demeanour had changed. His grey eyes glinted in the candle lit room and his posture was now suddenly far more straight than Caledra had noticed before. Combined wth his lanky frame, it made him look surprisingly tall. This was not the same man she had slapped half an hour ago.

"So you would send six hundred men against a heavily fortified forsaken garrison and hide them from view? How?" It still did not make sense. Erich turned to look at her, fixing Caledra in his disturbingly focused gaze. She had the sensation of a child being singled out by her teacher among her peers when she said something stupid

"Who says that I am going to send six hundred men to do the job of a hundred?" His stare moved to the Gilnean, who looked positively thrilled at the way the plan's details seemed to have been fleshed out. "And you, my good man, when are you ready to depart?"

"Immediately. Lord Darius Crowley, former master of these lands, pleased to make your acquaintance." The Gilnean extended a hand in greeting. He smelled awfully like a wet dog.

Erich took it and gave it a firm shake. "Altgraf Erich Von Peiper, formerly of Solland, Dog of War. Lets send the dead back to their graves."

* * *

 _ **guest: I am trying to build up to that. Hans is an ulrican. It will certainly be interesting to see what he thinks of the Gilnean condition.**_

 _ **James Koach: If you would be so kind, can you point me to some spelling mistakes I am making? I am using spellcheck on Open office to make sure that more egregious errors are appearing and I am used to writing in British English. Still, I will endavour to proofread more in the future. This chapter was largely devoted to seeing the Alliance army on the march as it is something I had neglected in the previous chapter. Any more advice regarding details would be greatly appreciated.**_

 _ **CaptnDetergent: Erich knows his stuff, at least when it comes to waging war.**_

 _ **Ironbang, Turoo: You will see soon enough ;)**_


	13. Chapter 13

**Undeath Resurgent**

* * *

Hans, despite his battle scarred appearance was not a particularly harsh man. Twenty years of service in the Middenland state troops often led to people losing an eye or ear from beastmen.. Like most of the empire, Middenland was largely covered by the Drakwald, which necessitated the constant patrol of regular troops to the furthest reaches of Count Boris Todbringer's domain. His tenure as one had abruptly come to an end, ironically enough, in Altdorf where his unit of halberds had gone to retrieve a distant relative of the count. The man in question had been gored by beastmen the day after he had left Altdorf.

Faced with the prospect of returning to Middenheim and becoming the centrepiece of a public execution, Hans had led his men forwards throughout the empire, into the vaults and to the strange cities of Tilea. Hungry and in a bad mood, they had nearly come to blows with a bigger mercenary company. Now, they were part of that mercenary company led by his compatriot, Erich Von Peiper, a Sollander and a disinherited noble.

Right now Erich was leading hans and his detachment of Halberds south from the ruined village that Luigi, Littorio and Rodrigo were busy fortifying. This morning, when Hans had woken up, the prospect of the smallest skirmish had been distant on his mind. Ever since they had landed here in what he assumed was Lustria, life was surprisingly comfortable and uneventful. Estalians and Tileans said that that Lustria was full of steaming jungles and murderous lizardmen that would kill or sacrifice explorers and travellers in their glittering temples of gold. So far, he had seen neither of those things, but instead a bunch of gold he had found buried in the chapel of the last town they had sacked.

Life certainly was good. When he woke up this morning, Hans had expected to be patrolling the village along with a dozen men. On the battlefield, his men were kept as a reserve to engage more dangerous targets like a berserking troll or a giant that had wandered too close to their pike line. Heavily armoured, they also made a good choice for patrolling the camps and making sure men were not getting too riotous in their boredom. Herr Erich had disrupted that plan. Apparently there was a small force to their south that was heavily fortified, and the entire force of halberdiers were needed to protect a cannon crew. It was something left to the likes of Greatsword regiments or Knights of the Empire, but here Hans and his boys would have to serve. At least they were not on the march to a battle. Erich had secured a cushy if boring rear echelon position.

This place reminded him somewhat of the outer reaches of the drakwald forest. The trees were similar to the coniferous forests on the border of Middenland, Nordland and Hochland, with thick dark trunks and needle like leaves. He seldom saw them ever since he had marched south of the Vaults. Bretonnia, Tilea and Estalia. The badlands and the realms of the Border princes barely had any vegetation. Here the weather was cold and getting colder every day. Sooner or later they would need warmer clothing if they did not wish to freeze to death. Ulric – his god – was the God of Winter and Wolves, as a somewhat pragmatic enough man, Hans knew that warm clothing would do just as well as the blessing of the gods. He looked up in the sky and saw the sun obscured by large clouds that lazily drifted overhead, in contrast to their own marching pace.

The terrain seemed positively marshy as if a large army had marched through the area before churning all the grass into mud. He hoped that that army was either far away or at the very least friendly. His men would be made into mincemeat if they had to face an entire army at once. Erich had mentioned a small force that was going to be bombarded by artillery, but during his time as a state trooper he had heard the same thing half a hundred times.

"The beastmen will be blown up by our cannons once we engage them."

"Oh don't worry, the knights will take care of them."

Around half the time, it was dead wrong and State troopers died. Half the time, it was right, and less State troopers died. Still, there was nothing to do but follow Erich's orders for the time being. Ulric called, and like a good Middenlander, Hans would obey.

* * *

Erich saw the dwarf artillery position at the top of a small rise, around thrice as tall as him. They had taken care to conceal their positions. The dead had not harassed them so far. It would seem that the Darius Crowley fellow had sent his orders well in advance. He wondered how the man had been able to do that. Hans' men were ready and they had set off a few minutes after he had left the camp. Surely Erich would have been able to see the man on the road, unless he had a horse.

On this ground it was hard to tell. It would seem that the retreating undead had turned the entire heath into a muddy pit with too many tracks to make sense of. Rodrigo probably could but he was busy fortifying the encampment. While not exactly as sturdy as bastions made by the engineers from the College of Nuln, the work done by his men would be satisfactory enough and easy to take down. They excelled at making field defences for breaking up cavalry charges and the like, not at fortifying abandoned towns. The walls at least seemed to be in good enough shape. Maybe if they had a month or so, the town would be fortified as it ever was. Right now if they were to be attacked, Erich would rather use the town to anchor his defences and form up around the road towards Southshore. That way they could ensure that their way of retreat would not be cut off.

The dwarf woman, Captain Hulda stoutiron waved at them as they got close. It was disconcerting to see a dwarf female. Erich had always thought of dwarf society as being bereft of women. Dwarfs in Nuln were largely traders, smiths or engineers from the Vaults who ventured into human settlements to get rich and then go back home. It made sense that dwarfs would keep their women safe. Apparently, according to some Imperial scholars, dwarfs were a dying race that never recovered from their cataclysmic war with the High elves long before humanity ever came to the empire. It was surprising to see a dwarf woman leading a contingent of big guns. Even that was not the most bizarre thing to see.

Half a dozen of the halfling creatures ran about, busy as bees tinkering with the cannons and making sure that the artillery was in position. As a man of the Empire, Halflings to Erich were known for two and a half things. Cooking, thieving and shooting arrows were all they were good for. Yes, occasionally they would kill a few zombies crossing over from Sylvania but that was not their forte. Much to the chagrin of Stirlanders, the halflings had laid claim to the moot, a place fertile enough to feed the empire and thumbed their nose at Wurtbad. After all, the Chief Elder of the moot claimed, that halflings were on par with humans when it came to the empire's political structure. A glutton of an emperor had given the moot the status of an independent state and the Chief elder was a valid elector, on par with the Arch lectors of Sigmar. His men were looking at the diminutive creatures in wonder as much as he was. Clearly their thoughts were similar to his own.

"Och, laddie, yer men here already? Dinnae get lost in the mud did ye?" Captain Stoutiron exclaimed.

"I beg your pardon miss?" Erich could barely make out her thickly accented Common. In contrast with Caledra and Garrick, who had nearly flawless pronunciation, she seemed almost unintelligible.

"Ach, these bonny lads will do just fine. Shall we begin then?" She smiled as she said that, rubbing her hands. Clearly she was beyond eager to start bombarding the Undead redoubt.

"I suppose so. We will be waiting here at the bottom of the rise. Give me a shout when they begin to get close."

"Aye, that I will do lad, ye boys just make yourself nice and comfortable while we blow them to smithereens eh?"

Erich nodded, vaguely getting the gist of what she was trying to say.

"Take a knee boys. The nice dwarf lady will let us know when we start to earn our money."

The halberdiers took a knee. It was standard practice for soldiers in the reverse to rest by kneeling down instead of sitting. It was easier to get up, did not cause one's leg to fall asleep and was almost as good as sitting down. After all, the battlefield did not always have chairs for each and every soldier.

After around five minutes, the bombardment began. Erich could not see the redoubt, or even the shots themselves. At the same time, he knew the bore of those cannons. Not the best at targeting rapidly moving forces, but incredibly good at pounding through wood, stone, metal. And flesh. A small cohort of Ogre maneaters would wreak havoc on massed infantry, but were easy targets for master gunners. Some of them even took bets to hit things like giants, ogres and giant spiders in the heads. It was a difficult feat to pull off, but nothing ensured the target was dead better than a cannon ball turning a monster's head into bloody splinters.

From the bottom of the rise, Erich could see the muzzle flashes of the cannons. Slowly the top began to disappear in a cloud of blackpowder smoke. While the dwarfs loaded and manned the cannons, the Halflings ran around making sure that they were not being blown too off course by the artillery. Seeing them run around with their slightly enlarged heads and soot covered faces was comical, and Erich had to suppress a laugh. Some of the halberdiers sniggered. He could tell that the men were bored out of their minds. Veteran state troops for the most part, they were pleased that they were being covered by artillery, even if it was apparently manned by Halflings.

 _Gnomes, they are called gnomes, not halfings._

Erich had nearly forgotten that. There was no word for gnomes in Reikspiel, so halflings would have to suffice. Still, it was rather odd to see halflings - or something that was so close to one so as to make no difference - on an active role on the battlefield. He clutched his fine Estalian rapier in his hand and adjusted his belt. Soon enough, it would be time to close in with the enemy.

"Och, the bastards are rushing out of their encampment." Captain stoutiron shouted from the top of the rise, her pigtails and face covered with soot and sweat. She clearly believed in a hands-on approach while leading her artillery unit.

"How many?"

"Ach, I kinnae hear you laddie, louder!" She shouted. The cannonade was beginning to reach a fever pitch.

Erich ran up to her instead. It would help to get warmed up.

"How many, Captain stoutiron?"

"As many as twice as much as your lads, and they have an abomination with them."

"What's an abomination, is it big?"

"Aye, it is. Ten feet tall and with three hands full of butcher's knives. Whaddya mean ye never seen one before?"

Erich had seen a few of the things on the day they had stumbled into Southshore. Sewn from corpses and reanimated with foul magic. Thankfully Serra had burned them with her fire until nothing but a fine ash remained. Gods, his men had not seen that thing before. That would spread discord in the ranks.

"Can you destroy it with your cannons?" He asked pensively.

Captain Stoutiron's broad face broke into a smile.

"Aye, I can do that, thought ye would never ask dearie."

She shouted something in her own tongue to the crew. The firing stopped for a moment as the guns were resighted. Then they fired. A few cheers went up from the crew, along with yells and alarms. She turned to look at him, her blue eyes shimmering brightly in her soot covered face. Her voice held a trace of panic.

"They are getting too close. We got the big beastie but yer lads will have to protect the battery."

Erich nodded. "Keep shelling the redoubt until we engage them. Then the militia will attack the encampment."

"Militia, och, ye mean the worgen? I see." She nodded and yelled her orders back to the crew. Another pause as they sighted their guns on the fortification.

Erich would have asked what she meant by worgen but time was of the essence. He raised his cap and waved to Hans and his men.

Almost all at once, they rose and formed into ranks. Slowly they began to climb the rise, the tramp of their feet moving in unison startling the dwarf and halfling crews manning the cannon. Erich ran up to join them, firmly putting his cap back on. The time for loafing around was over. It was now time to fight. They crested the rise and saw their enemies.

The charging undead horde advanced without any semblance of rank or order. Their rotten and dessicated limbs clutched short swords, axes and shields for the most part with a few spears and bows thrown in. Even goblin raiding parties in the badlands seemed better equipped in comparison. The bloated corpse of the monstrosity laid a few yards away, smashed to a bloody pulp with the combined power of the entire battery. The dwarfs and halfings seemed to be bloody good shots if nothing else.

Startled by the apparition of Erich's men now rapidly marching down the rise, they undead gaped in confusion and wonder. A few of their jaws opened up, while some literally dropped to the ground in shock. They began to gibber among themselves as if discussing this new development in front of their eyes. This was certainly odd. Erich knew that the undead were mindless puppets that had been raised by either vampires or necromancers, and were incapable of thought. That was what made them such a terrifying foe to fight. They would only retreat if their master commanded them to. Otherwise they would attack relentlessly, untiring until either they, or their foes were dead, only to be raised again.

Erich had heard of ghouls – cannibals who desecrated tombs to feed on corpses and steadily degenerated into similar monsters to the undead but still living retain a modicum of their intelligence. They however could not or even wield weapons, preferring to hit their foes with bones used as clumsy maces and their dirt filled claws. He had certainly never heard of them using swords, shields and – Myrmidia forbid – bows. This was certainly an odd place to be. Thankfully, their tactics were as terrible as the state of their bodies.

Their lines clashed, or rather Erich's men rolled over the front ones with in the manner that a mill grinds corn, slowly and steadily. Too startled to see their foes advance in an organised manner, the first ones had clumsily tried to defend themselves before being cut down like crops at the hands of the harvester's scythe. Erich had scored a particularly good kill by shooting a heavily armoured corpse in it's exposed midriff. The spine had completely shattered and the creature literally broke in half under the power of the nuln forged pistol shot.

The bang had brought the undead to what senses they still possessed and they attacked with a fury that stopped the advance of Erich's men in their tracks. Heedless of their own safety, they charged straight into the line of waiting halberds attacking ferociously for the most part.

Fortunately for Erich, they still fought as individual warriors instead of a coherent whole. Time and time again, he would see a Forsaken corpse attempt to push his advantage over a halberdier only to be gutted by the halberd of the man next to him. They fought to win individual duels, while Erich's men fought to win the actual skirmish. This was going to be easy.

Suddenly a wolf howl rent the air. It came from the direction of the forest. Hans, fighting in the front line with his ornate halberd shouted at the top of his voice, startling Erich. "Ulrich's wolves charge with us boys, slay the undead!" Bolstered by his words, the company began to push forward, slowly and steadily, driving the undead back, using the press of their bodies to push away individual warriors. Erich lagged behind the press, using the extra space he had to reload his pistol.

One of the dead warriors saw him isolated and hissed, before running at him with as much speed as his dessicated legs could allow. Erich could see that it's right leg did not even have a kneecap, the bones clanking against each other awkwardly. The damnable thing was moving far too fast for him to actually reload, aim and shoot. He would have to use his rapier.

It charged at him head on, trying to bash Erich with it's spiked shield and finishing him off with it's mace. Erich changed his stance to better anticipate the flow of the Forsaken warrior's movements. He inhaled sharply and exhaled slowly, his adrenaline slowing the flow of the world around him for a moment. This would require a bit of finesse.

The corpse was scarcely two yards away when Erich sidestepped the charge by swiftly rolling to it's left. This close, it passed by him and tried to spin around, its loint creaking. The hand holding the spiked buckler was skeletal. Now that Erich was in range, it raised it's mace to clobber Erich on the head with it's studded mace. Another inhalation.

The began mace to swing towards his head while the shield was angled towards him to prevent Erich from charging straight into it. A balanced stance. With one fatal flaw. It's weakened leg was completely exposed. Erich felt his body dive towards the weakened leg and felt his boot make contact with it, completely snapping it in half and sending the creature off balance. Now that the right side of it's body was unsupported, it collapsed into the mud. Erich walked over and stabbed it in the neck with his rapier, the body going limp instantly.

He looked around. The entire duel had been a few seconds. Hans' Halberdiers had advanced a few paces and were holding their ground well. Even as he ran to join them, he spied large figures, hunch backed, jump into the redoubt from the forest. From this distance, he could clearly see that they were too big, and two twisted to be human.

His mind full of doubt, he took his place in the middle of the unit. Apart from a couple of unfortunate souls who had been stabbed the field was littered with the corpses of the undead. They were regrouping again for an advance when Erich heard the wolf howl again. It was coming from the redoubt. Suddenly a series of explosions rocked the redoubt, filling it with fire and smoke.

In response the area around the forest reverberated with similar howls of wolves. Hans was elated. Erich was troubled. The howls sounded too loud to be simple wolf howls.

"Schiltrom, now!"

Despite being as confused as he was by the howls that seemed to be surrounding them, Erich's men heard his call and obeyed without question. The advance stopped and the men began to form into a rough circle around him. Hans slowly made his way at his side.

"What do you think is happening Hans?"

"Ulric's wolves, Herr Von Peiper. They fight with us."

Erich was about to scoff at that idea when he saw dozens of shapes emerge from the redoubt and charge towards them and the embattled undead. They were wolves that had been men, or men that had been wolves. Wearing scraps of armour and a few loincloths, their forms were bestial but human at the same time. Every colour of wolf Erich had seen were represented there in a horrific parody of man and beast. They ran on four feet and with snarls and howls that were positively wolfish, they tore into the embattled undead with a frenzy that made him queasy.

Hans stared at the scene with his mouth agape.

"What do we do Captain?"

"Keep your halberds pointed outwards. If they close in, stab them." Erich's hands were trembling. Where were the Gilnean militia? Had they been killed by these beastmen?

In a few minutes, the undead were all killed. The fire that consumed the redoubt was now a blazing pyre sending it's smoke high in the sky. The wolfmen howled triumphantly at the sight of the battlefield covered in blood and corpses that were dead a second time.

One of them, slightly bigger than the rest walked up to them, just out of range of the halberds tips. It stood there, before lolling it's tongue.

"Erich Von Peiper, are you there?"It's voice was a low growl.

Gods, the beastman could speak. And coherently too.

"Yes, I am here."Erich's voice came out steady.

"The attack on the Forsaken encampment was a smashing success. We have saved many prisoners they were torturing. We need to keep them in your camp. You have the gratitude of Gilneas." Erich noticed that the leader's eye was missing during his statement. Something dimly stirred in his mind.

"Who are you?" He had meant to say _what_ but Erich did not doubt the creature would take offence to that.

It laughed, a low grumbling sound. And then it yelled.

Erich heard the yell, slowly lessening in both tone and intensity, until it sounded human. Some of the men in front gasped. Erich pushed his way through the schiltrom and saw what it was.

Standing in front of him in the mud was a naked man. His limbs were largely clean and well formed showing a childhood free of starving for food. Erich's eyes traced his face for a moment before he recognized the shoulder length brown hair that had not been cleaned in a while, the moustache and the goatee, along with a single eye.

"You do remember me right? We met this morning at Pyrewood." Lord Darius Crowley's voice said, answering Erich's question.

* * *

Olivar Garrick was returning home home. He had marched with a mighty army full of the sons of Lordaeron and the valiant men and women of Stormwind who were now going to take back their homes. The sun was beginning to set over the sea, and Fenris Keep was still a day away. The farms that they had crossed on their march were mournfully empty. A few snarling zombies and feral worgen populated what had once been merry hamlets full of life. It was his duty and fate to fill them with laughing families. Varian Wrynn himself trusted in him to restore Lordaeron to it's former glory.

Even at the height of Lordaeron's power, Silverpine had not been densely populated. The mountainous and rocky terrain meant that only a few farmsteads were ever leased from his family's domains. The flatter lands around Shadowfang Keep were owned by the Crowleys and the Silverlaines, who were Gilneans. The wealth of the Garrick family lay in the mines that overlooked lake Lordaemere. Before the Scourge came to Lordaeron, his father had plans to expand the mines and smelt the ore at Fenris keep itself, for a much larger source of profit. They had thankfully been spared payment for the money required for the Internment camps, allowing the smallfolk to lead a life of luxury compared to most of the populace of Lordaeron.

Even around the time Dalaran was being rebuilt, the villages of Southern silverpine were full of people from Lordaeron who made a life in their homelands along Pyrewood village. Adventurers travelling to the Scarlet Monastery could easily find a night's rest at the formerly prosperous town. He had left Caledra Dreambreeze in charge of the settlement. The elf was a bureaucrat, so she would know how to keep the mercenary scum in line. Once he had returned from liberating Lordaeron, maybe he would hang their leader from one of the fortifications he was doubtless trying to make.

The lake, despite being not so far away was hidden from view by the forested hills that surrounded them. Underneath those very hills lay veins of silver, copper and other precious metals that had once made the Garricks extremely wealthy. Now even the mines looked deserted, with no creature even approaching it. This was in stark contrast with the mines in stormwind that had often been overrun by the kobold or defias brotherhood, and occasionally even black dragon whelps from Blackrock mountain in the years past.

General Garrick's army was well supplied and he did not fear a forsaken ambush. At most it would be a few harrying parties that could be dealt with easily. The Night Elven Druids would warn him of any sizeable forsaken force. Once they reached the forsaken front, their flanks would be secure, and Garrick could conduct the invasion of Lordaeron from the comfort and beautiful view of Fenris Keep. Just another day's march and they would be there. He could almost hear the chirping of the birds flying over the vastness of Lake Lordamere. Even at this distance, he could hear the cries of the birds, if he could just shut out the sounds of the army on the march.

"Lieutenant Melrick, do you hear birds?" He turned to the man at his side. The man listened for a moment and then shook his head.

"It is because of the tramp of the boots. Go to the rear with the mages. You should hear them then."Garrick saw Melrick slowly make his way back along the entire length of the marching army to listen to the call of the birds. Satisfied, he closed his eyes and thought of home at the head of a marching army, coming to liberate his home.

* * *

Melrick's horse slowly trotted along the length of the army. Companies of men in the armour of Lordaeron led the way, with the forces of Stormwind following. General Garrick wanted the sons of the land to be the first to liberate it. Apparently Stormwind had done the same when it too had been reclaimed in the aftermath of the second war. He was slowly moving towards the rear now, when he stopped by a mine. He knew that the mines were largely abandoned after Lordaeron fell, but in Stormwind, he had heard reports of mines been taken over by giant spiders or kobolds or the like.

Here, the mines were curiously empty. If he had more time on his hands he would have investigated it in depth, often quite literally. Eventually it would have to be done. Once General Garrick had retaken his ancestral land, the mines would need to be cleared and trade re established with the rest of the alliance. Melrick sighed. He would probably be here in a couple of months handling out contracts to adventurers to clear the mind of whatever nasties that had crawled inside. He could wait.

As Melrick led his horse to the back of the line, the ordered companies of footmen were replaced by the light and irregular force of archers and militia that were bolstering the numbers of the army. They did not march but rather walked, talking to each other about home and the like. Melrick stopped and listened to their conversations, which were largely about a whole lot of small concerns that were mind numbingly dull and often full of misconceptions.

After listening to a discussion about invisibility potions made with murloc fins, he decided he had enough and trotted away from the column and towards the trees. Here the noise from the army was a lot lower, and he could even hear the wind moving through the trees, and the rustle of the leaves. The only thing missing was the sound of birds. They should be returning home over the lake by now.

He looked up. The only 'bird' flying overhead was one of the druids keeping an eye out on the enemy. He trotted back on to the path. There were a few stragglers and the mages. Perhaps they would prove to be more interesting companions on this journey. Melrick was in no hurry to return to report that he had heard no birds during the army's march.

"...I am telling you Cogwhistle, he cheated you. A person of your stature - " An older woman was talking to the only gnome of the party.

"Oh, so he charged me more because I am short is that it?" The pink haired gnome's face was a mask of fury.

"No, I am saying that someone as revered as you are in Stormwind should have paid a lot less for learning how to create a portal to Theramore." The older woman replied.

"He also gave me the reagents for a portal to Stormwind – free of charge. It was a good deal for the most part." The gnome was adamant about her financial choices.

"I really doubt those are real reagents. Once we are done with the army, test them out. If it works, I will buy a new set of reagents for you." The woman was exasperated.

"Hmph, fine. We will see!" The gnome's face and tone suggested the opposite.

The bird flying overhead slowly began to circle lower and lower towards them. It seemed that the druid's shift was done and some one else was going to scout for the marching army. Even as it made it's way to the rear of the line towards his friends, a single silent blur rushed out of the trees. It flew straight at the rapidly descending bird and pierced it. With a strangled cry, it fell, morphing into the tall shape of a night elf mid air.

It fell in front of melrick's horse, startling the poor creature. Melrick fell over from the horse and landed next to the druid. This close, he saw an arrow lodged in the poor elf's neck. The shaft and feathers were blood stained but still black. The druid had been shot as he had descended by someone in the trees. Melrick began to cry out a warning, but it was unnecessary.

Suddenly dozens of arrows erupted from the trees, aimed at the druids, mages and troops in the rear. At least two mages went down, their bodies pin cushioned by black arrows. The mages reacted in shock, and the gnome clutched her box and murmured something.

A glowing portal opened up. Melrick could vaguely make out alliance battlements on a strange sea coast.

"Come on fellas, this actually works!"

The mages were now oblivious to the rapidly unfolding ambush. Even as the soldiers and druids died, shot by dark arrows, the mages scrambled for the portal. The gnome was the last one through. Melrick made to follow but the portal shrank away into nothingness even as he approached it.

He was now alone in the middle of a forsaken ambush. He ran back to his horse and mounted up. Thankfully, the archers were not targeting him, rather focusing on the massed soldiers in front. Melrick had to get word of the ambush to General Garrick. Even as his horse galloped, he saw a sight that chilled him to the bones. The hundreds – no thousands – of forsaken warriors tramped up from the underground mines, heavily armed and equipped. The archers had thinned the centre of the column so much that the soldiers ran away in the area immediately around the forsaken. Taking advantage of their sudden terror, the forsaken established themselves across the road while hacking at the Stormwind and Lordaeron components of the army and isolating them from each other.

The army was being cut in half before Melrick's eyes.

* * *

Olivar Garrick was finally at lake Lordamere after all these years. Just like then, he was boating with his brothers. Only now, their guardians followed them, making sure the boys would behave. It would be an embarrassment if a Garrick was afraid of the water. No, they had to make sure that he was fixed of his predicament.

"I am so glad you could join us on this trip Oli, Mother would be proud of you." Leo and Reggie had not changed much since the last time he had seen them all those years ago. They still grinned stupidly, and their red hair was the same as his.

"I am sorry I left brother. The king had commanded me to be an envoy to Stormwind. I wanted to stay home with you but I had orders to follow."

"Yes, father did not like you joining King Terenas' army. Said he would rather you stay home and help expand the business." Reggie said.

"Father had enough sons to manage his business. Besides, I was not going to get any part of the land once he died. So I wanted to make my own fortune as a son of Lordaeron." Oli protested weakly.

"He missed you, you know. Never thought he would run off." Leo looked thoughtful as he said that.

"You could have defended our lands when the Scourge came."Reggie continued, his voice sombre.

"I could not. Varian Wrynn bid me stay." Oli admitted. He had wanted to return home then. "But I am back now." He put in brightly.

"That is the thing brother. The Queen wishes to know if you have returned a braver man than you left." Reggie's tone had changed. There was something sinister about it now.

"I did. I returned at the head of an army to save our home against the dead!" Oli replied. "You should have seen us. Marching from Southshore with our banners still flapping in the wind."

"What army brother? We found you wandering with broken armour off Fenris Keep and took you in." Leo replied, his voice harder.

Olivar could not remember what had happened yesterday. Snatches of memories came back to him. An argument with a lout in a town hall. An argument with the same lout in his tent about not listening to his commands.

"Uh, I don't remember brother. Where are we."

"Don't you remember Olly, all those years ago, when we were boating? This was the spot. The keep is still there in the distance see?" Reggie's hand was bony when he pointed it.

"We offered to prove to the Queen that you are braver. She demanded to see it in person, so here she is."

 _Olivar's head was swimming. Memories began to flood back into his head._

 _Drowning, he was drowning. King Terenas' wife had screamed when she had seen it, on a nearby boat. Boat...He was on a ship from stormwind, arriving at the head of a mighty army to retake Lordaeron from the undead._

 _The water in his lungs was cold... he was going to die._

 _An argument with a foreign man. He had been sleeping with Captain Dawnbreeze..._

 _He dared to question Garrick about supply lines. Garrick did not need supply lines. He would crush the undead._

 _Fighting...The knights charging into the forest, arrows bouncing off their thick thorium plate. Horses, not so lucky...Brought down by grasping bony hands._

 _Drugged..._

" _He should have his memory back by sun down tomorrow, My lady."_

 _A coldly beautiful woman, with long ears coming out of her hood, and hair that glinted silver, looked at him, red eyes burning with hatred..._

With a start, the rest of General Garrick's memories came back to him. Two dessicated hands held him with a fel strength. He struggled before his eyes caught the woman sitting on the boat next to him, staring at him like a child stares at a toy.

In life she had been beautiful. Death had taken away the hue of the skin, and the colour of her hair, but she stood straight in the boat, and Garrick saw that in a way, death had only increased her statuesque qualities. The only word he could use to describe her – bathed in moonlight,wearing nothing but the harness of a ranger of Quel'Thalas – was perfect. In life, she had been a second child filling in for her Older Sister's role. In death, she was the queen of an entire people.

"Shall we make our brother prove his bravery, Dark lady? Will you permit him to return to Lordaeron's embrace?" His two brothers spoke as one.

General Garrick was vaguely aware of hundreds – no, thousands – of shapes surrounding the lake, staring at the scene with dead eyes.

Sylvanas windrunner nodded, her red eyes brimming with hate.

The last thing Olivar Garrick remembered was the coldness of the water as it rushed into his lungs as it had, all those years ago.

* * *

 _ **Sorry for the delay guys, the tomb kings DLC came out so I was playing as a bunch of fun loving egyptian skeletons**_

 _ **James Koach, I tried copy pasting. Do let me know if it is better or not.**_

 ** _Regarding upgrading armour, I will get to that all in good time._**

 _ **Guest: Yes, I wonder if an Ulrican will look at the worgen curse as a blessing or not. I suppose we will find out.**_

 _ **Map: Pretty good stuff, and helpful too.**_

 _ **Solarblaster: Thanks. Erich might have a bigger problem on his plate though.**_


	14. Chapter 14

**Grim Tidings**

* * *

Caledra was busy stockpiling the supplies in the abandoned smithy. Boxes of Iron ingots, coal for smelting and flux for removing impurities from the metal were stacked neatly outside, waiting to be unpacked. The Armourer, was busy stoking the forge trying to get it to light. It was proving to be a difficult task, and the man, skinny and hungry looking as he was was hard at work trying to start a fire. He muttered to himself nonsensically as the fire repeatedly failed to catch. Looking at her, Caledra felt a pang of sadness and unease. The man said that he had been at his job for so long that he had forgotten his own name. Now he called himself the armourer and lived to craft armour for forces of the Alliance to wear. At least his physical ills would recover. It would seem that even a living blacksmith was too valuable for the Forsaken forces to kill outright. The same could not been said for his mind.

More than a hundred villagers had been held in conditions that were grotesque from what she had told. Most of the prisoners had gangrenous limbs that would need to be amputated eventually. Darius Crowley said that the prisoners had been buried up to their neck in the ground, and had been left to rot away alive, in a parody of crops that were planted during the season. While Caledra was no healer, she could tell that most of the survivors were too far gone to be helped. It seemed that the graveyard would be full before long.

On a better note, the Forsaken had been utterly crushed at their makeshift redoubt and all the heavy siege engines they had used during the invasion of Gilneas had been destroyed. She had again missed seeing Erich's men in action. Darius Crowley and Captain Stoutiron were pleased with him however. Apparently his ruse had worked far better than expected. The bombardment had rattled the Forsaken forces, and seeing an unscreened and unsupported alliance force attacking them from the front, they had rushed ahead to destroy the Ironforge company. The gilneans had infiltrated the camp and destroyed the siege engines with ease, overwhelming the guards. Then they had proceeded to destroy the forsaken that had been engaged by the polearm wielding troops that Erich had led.

Meanwhile she had been busy since morning trying to fortify Pyrewood. To their credit, the Sergeants were obedient enough and the men had managed to cut the nearest trees with hatchets. However, it seemed that their knowledge of fortifying positions was lacking at best. Instead of building a perimeter wall that went along the village to reinforce the few stone structures that remained like she had ordered, they had gone ahead haphazardly placed the wooden logs around the settlement and the road itself. When she had questioned them about what they were doing, The men had replied that they were fortifying the approaches to the village.

By the time the prisoners had been rescued, a series of irregular palisade segments littered the road. This was a poor wall by anyone's standards. Captain Stoutiron would be able to do a much better job of fortifying the settlement. She was now sharing a drink with Darius Crowley, Erich and some of the dwarfs. At least these mercenaries were capable of performing simpler tasks. They had done a good job of distributing the supplies from the baggage cart across the village. The town hall and chapel were filled with medical supplies and food. The smithy was being stocked with the tools necessary for making weapons and armour. By the end of the day, the village would be well stocked enough to support the invasion of Lordaeron proper.

Caledra left the heat of the forge, the colder air outside a welcome change from the stifling heat. Outside, soldiers from Stormwind and the mercenaries were busy carrying boxes of goods. She noticed that some of the mercenaries had begun to pick up simple sentences by observing the soldiers. As far as she could tell, they could use words like box, push, food, drink reliably enough to get the point across. Of course, when anything more complicated than a couple of words arose, the two groups would slowly point and mutter among themselves before slowly parting ways. It would be amusing if she was not in charge of making everything went smoothly.

From what she had seen and read of humans, both their histories and the ones of the High elven scholars in Silvermoon, Humans had all originated from the the lands around Arathi basin before slowly spreading throughout the continent. Ever since the discovery of the Titanic Repository in Northrend, wilder theories had circulated, mostly from grog filled adventurers who had gone there. Still, the fact remained that humans from Stormwind could easily communicate with humans in Lordaeron or Gilneas since they spoke dialects of the language they called Common, which bespoke a common origin. Similar principles existed for Thalassian and Darnassian, the language that the Kal'Dorei of Kalimdor used. The Quel'Dorei had been Night elves once, but had been banished for using arcane magic.

These mercenaries on the other hand undoubtedly came from a land far away. Their language, although roughly similar to common had very different rules for tenses and describing genders and nouns. Erich Von Peiper had been quite clear with his thoughts and how sentences worked, and as a result Caledra had become passably fluent in the language in the span of a week. Erich on the other hand had gleaned far more information from her, mostly because she had centuries worth of knowledge in how the Common language worked. Still it was impressive to hear someone speak a language fluently in the span of a week. It seemed that the enchanted quill that the half elf mage had given him was a powerful tool.

Caledra had barely seen Serra ever since they had left Southshore. While she was barely capable of casting the most simple spells, she could sense magical power if she attuned her senses. It was something inherent to every High Elf who had grown attuned to the Sunwell. It helped them pick out troll leaders or priests that spoke to their gods. What little she had glimpsed of Serra suggested that the mage had great power. It was nothing strange. At times even humans could be a fount of magical strength that bewildered the most accomplished elf. Most of the time, it came to naught. Human lives were too short to do anything with their magic, no matter how much they extended their lifespans. Half elves were incredibly rare, and as far as Caledra knew from her limited knowledge, she had not sensed anyone as powerful as Serra. She would be worth keeping an eye on.

At the very least, enchanting a simple feather to pen thoughts was probably difficult to pull off, especially permanently. The spell was still as strong as ever. It either meant that Serra had permeated the feather with enough arcane magic to stabilise the spell, or she was powering it unconsciously. Either one bespoke of a mage well trained in the arcane arts.

Thinking about this was pointless. Maybe if she was ever in Dalaran she would ask one of her kin who was actually versed in using magic about the particulars of Serra's handiwork. Caledra had a supply depot to run.

All of the leaders who had led the liberation of the prisoners were absolutely smashed when she walked inside the tavern. In contrast with Southshore, Pyrewood tavern was completely empty. The soldiers had done a good enough job cleaning it, and practically all of the dust was gone. The furniture had been long gone, however, and they were sitting on boxes. Captain Stoutiron was slurring something that she could not parse, but it brought laughter from everyone else from the table. Darius Crowley's face resembled a beet, and Erich was doing all he could to sit straight, failing miserably in the process.

Even as she walked over to the table, Erich patted Crowley on the cheek and said, "And then, all these wolfies were just standing there, and one of them starts to yelp. I walk ahead to take a look and Darius Crowley is standing wearing the clothes he was born in." Captain Stoutiron snorted, some of the drink going to her nose.

"And then, he just stares at me like he has never seen a man become a worgen before!"

Captain Stoutiron was wheezing at the hilarity of the situation.

"No, I never have. I thought you were a demon. Actually I still do." The deadpan delivery of the line caused both of them to stop drinking and to turn and look at Erich. He looked at them for a moment, his reddened face impassive, before he burst out laughing. They joined in after a moment. It was all a joke.

"What would you do if I was a demon anyway?" Crowley asked, as if it was a conversation about brass buttons.

"Piss myself, probably. In fact, I think I will need a chamberpot soon." Erich replied without skipping a beat.

They were certainly enjoying themselves.

Caledra was about to interject when the cry of a bird caught her attention. It was a large bird that was flying into the building. Maybe the bird had a nest inside that the soldier had cleared. It flew into the tavern at almost breakneck speed and squawked loudly, drawing everyone's attention to it. The drunks stopped their conversation to look at it.

The bird's form began to change, growing rapidly. The wings lost their feathers and began to transform into forearms. The legs expanded and the knees righted themselves. The bird's torso began to change into a lean muscled shape. After a moment, a night elven druid lay sprawled on the ground, his green hair matted and forehead dripping with perspiration. The mantle of leaves and the crown were the only indication that the panting Night elf was the redoubtable Druid Moonclaw.

Seeing him turn from a bird and lie down on the floor panting, Captain Hulda Stoutiron burst into laughter once more, and Erich and Darius joined her. To their beer addled minds, having a bird turn into a Night elf seemed like some elaborate practical joke. Caledra helped the elf up. He thanked her quietly before asking for a drink.

Caledra fetched him a beer. He drank it quietly and slowly, sitting on the floor. Once he was done, he exhaled slowly. Caledra could wait. Druid Moonclaw must have been thirsty. Fenris Keep was a long distance from Pyrewood village. He looked like he had flown the entire night to get here.

Caledra tapped her foot when he did not speak for another minute. He seemed unfocused and would have sat there for Light knows now long unless she did not speak.

"Druid Moonclaw, what report from the army? Have we taken Fenris Keep yet?"

The druid hissed and looked at her with hostility before recognition dawned. He stammered something unintelligible before taking a deep breath. Then he spoke.

"The army was ambushed by the forsaken around the mines and destroyed. General Garrick is dead or worse. I flew here to warn you of the news. We must flee."

Caledra's blood ran cold. The entire army, destroyed. The forsaken on the march once more. Everything that had happened in the last month On the table the drunks still laughed and joked oblivious to the danger they were in. They would be destroyed by the forsaken. She had to escape this place while she still could.

"Hey, purple elf, why the long face? Someone stole your eggs?" Erich's voice rang out, slurring at the edges. To his credit, druid Moonclaw did not rise up to the jibe. He kept looking at Caledra..

 _He expects me to tell him what to do. I am in command here._ Caledra realised, her heart skipping a beat. Almost without thinking, she said, "Tell them the news." Then she sat down with her face in her hands. This was too much for her. What was she going to do? She had never led an army, even at most she had led only a few rangers on their patrols. Commanding people to build an encampment was one thing, but commanding them in the field was beyond her. The best idea would be to sound a retreat.

The laughter from the table had stopped. All three of them were listening to what the Night Elf had to say. A mug clattered on the floor. Captain Stoutiron had of course finished her drink. Lord Crowley was shaking as he put down his mug, from fear or alcohol, Caledra could not tell.

Erich meanwhile stared at him for a moment before asking, "Are you absolutely sure that the army has been routed?"

Druid Moonclaw nodded vacantly.

Erich exhaled. "I really need to piss", he said, getting up.

* * *

Erich stood over a map of the Silverpine forest. His head swimming. If he had known, he would have moderated his drink.

Caledra, Hulda, Druid Moonclaw, Crowley, and all his sergeants were around the table looking at the map. Someone had opened a window in the town hall. The light was too bright for Erich. He needed quiet to think. They were all muttering around him.

The vague beginnings of an idea began to pop into his head.

"Moonclaw, can you fly?"

The purple elf nodded, his green hair waving behind him gently. A bath had done him wonders. Now instead of a pauper, he looked mysterious and powerful.

"I want you to fly back up there and see if there are any survivors."

"I saw the army disintegrating."He replied terrified.

"It does not matter. An ambush on this scale, individual groups of soldiers would have fought their way out. They will try to retreat back to the last encampment they were in. I want you to tell them to fall back to Pyrewood village. With any luck we should have enough men to mount a defence against the Undead should they threaten us. Please."

The elf looked to Caledra for askance. Erich had forgotten that she was the commander herel She nodded her assent. Thankfully, she was not trying to pull her rank here. That was the last thing Erich needed. His stomach gave an awful lurch.

"Rodrigo, I want you to take you scouts and patrol around the eaves of the forest. They will try to send scouts to assess our strength."

"Si Signor. Not a single mouse shall move without your askance." Rodrigo cocked his dwarf made crossbow and left.

"Littorio, how are the defenses." The Tilean got up with a start and muttered something.

"Louder, I cannot hear you."Hungover or not, Littorio's voice did not reach him.

"Very good Signor We should break up any major assault."

"Good"

Caledra interjected. "Wait. He has not fortified the village at all. All your men did was to lay down a lot of stakes around the road to southshore." This was a particularly stupid elf.

Erich sighed. "Yes. Those stakes will break up any large scale assault that can cut us off from Southshore and pin us in the village."

"Why aren't you defending the village itself?"

"Because the village is not defensive you stupid wench. A palisade will keep out wolves and the occasional walking corpse. It is indefensible against an army. We have much better chances of fighting along the road and retreating in good order." Did he have to explain everything to her?

"What about all the supplies?"

"Forget about the supplies. Load as much food and drink as you can in the carts. We might need it if we are driven back into hillsbrad."

"What are you planning? Tell us what you think!" Her voice was loud.

"I am too hammered to think properly. What is worse is that I have no information. There will be stragglers trying to reach back here. Depending on how many soldiers we have, we might be able to defend Pyrewood, or we might have to flee. Either way, I will be sober enough by tomorrow morning to tell you what to do. Luigi, Hans, rouse up your men. Drink ration is halved, we might have a battle to fight Stoutiron, look for a good spot for deploying your forces. We will be fighting the battle around your cannons. Lord Crowley, are your fighters prepared?" Erich's heart was pounding and his head was killing him. He would need to vomit soon.

"They are."

"Send them into the woods north of here. Try to link up with our forces in the area. Try to get them to return here in one piece, more or less. Our position here depends on the soldiers we will have at our disposal."

There was no need to panic. Beastmen often routed Empire forces. Most of the time only a fraction of the force would be destroyed. Then they could regroup and fight another day against them. Erich desperately hoped that the same principles would apply here. If he panicked everyone else would too. It would spread like a cancer throughout the ranks. They had the advantage of a prepared battleground if they were attacked.

"I shall do that."

"This meeting is adjourned. I will stay here. If you need me, you know where to look. Good luck, and may the gods look after us."

Everyone left. Everyone except Caledra.

"What do you want?" Erich asked her.

"Are you alright?" Her voice was full of concern.

"I am drunk, and am trying to defend against an army that does not need to sleep or rest with soldiers who woke up this morning thinking they were going to be stacking boxes for the rest of the week. No, I feel sick."

"Oh" Her brows furrowed. "You did not tell me what to do."

"You stand at the northern entrance and look pretty. And get me a head count of the amount of soldiers returning. We need to bivouac them inside the village. Even if they make it back, they will be too exhausted to fight. Make sure that they keep away from my men."

"Will that be all you need me to do?" She seemed disappointed. This infuriated Erich for some reason. What, did the bitch think that marshalling the men and making sure they were well rested before a battle not important?

"How about you sleep with me right now? We might never get a chance." Erich blurted out. It was a crass joke at the best of times. Now was not the best of times.

Caledra's face immediately reddened and she wrinkled her nose in disgust. Myrmidia forgive him, part of him wanted to take here, right then and there on the table.

"Excuse me Von Peiper? Did I hear you correctly? You want me to sleep with you?"

"No you stupid bitch. I need some time to sober up. Now get out there and give me a head count of all the survivors. And tell the men to stop unloading the supplies. We must assume that everything stockpiled in the village has already been lost. Now get moving." She left almost immediately.

Erich got up. He walked up to the chamber pot. The exertion was enough. His stomach gave a lurch. He keeled over and spilled all the contents of his stomach and filled it up. Since this morning, he had fought in a skirmish, buried on of his men, made an ass of himself and was leading the defence of a largely indefensible location while being hungover.

When Ranald pissed on mortals, he passed thunderstorms instead of a trickle.

* * *

 ** _I am afraid that I might burn myself out on this story. As of posting this chapter I have written over sixty thousand words in over two weeks. This pace has been hard to keep up on and I am afraid that the quality of the story might suffer. Future updates might not be daily but I will try to post as often as I can. I am still humbled by the awesome reception I have gotten so far, and thank you for putting up with this._**

 ** _Map, thank you for the map. I cannot describe how useful it is to plot out a campaign when you have a composite map to refer to._**

 _ **Subzero: Maybe in someone else's story.**_

 _ **James Koach: I will of course be cleaning up mistakes like you mentioned, thank you for the sharp eyes.**_

 ** _guest, Skinchangers are norscan, but the children of Ulric are also shapeshifters. How the men of Tilea see the Worgen depends on how the worgen behave._**


	15. Chapter 15

**The Battle of Pyrewood**

* * *

To an outside observer, Silverpine forest was a small haven of quiet in a world that was now rapidly succumbing to the ravages of a kind of warfare the world had never seen before. Perhaps the Elementals remembered the time when the titans came, when the world was still empty, something like this war raged across the entire surface of Azeroth. In the midst of the massive naval, aerial and land battles that were taking place on Kalimdor as the Horde and the Alliance brought their power to bear on each other, Silverpine forest now seemed quaint, almost as if the land slept blissfully even as battles raged across it. There was a cold wind in the air as the days grew progressively shorter. It almost seemed picturesque in it's silent beauty. Of course, Caledra Dreambreeze knew why the woods were so quiet as she stood on the outskirts of Pyrewood with a cadre of guards from the town. Behind her, they muttered under their armour, not knowing that with her senses, she could hear them just fine. Humans were a lot of things as a race, subtlety however had to be drilled into them.

"Why are we standing here? Shouldn't we be patrolling the town and keeping those mercenary scum in check?" A younger man said under his breath.

"I don't know Sam, I overheard a few of the Gilneans talking before they left. Apparently these scum crushed any forsaken between here and Greymane's wall before this morning." His older companion replied.

"What, that is not possible. There must have been hundreds of them holed up by the wall itself, in one of the smaller bastions." A woman joined in the discussion. Her accent marked her as a person who had been born in the city itself, rather than the hinterlands of westfall or the villages of Elwynn forest.

"The gilneans hid in the forest and the ironforge brigade blasted them out. The mercenaries made short work of them on the open field, while the gilneans destroyed their plague catapults and canisters. That's what the gilneans said." The older man fidgeted as he replied. Thankfully the Gilneans were still shy about transforming into the open. It unnerved people to see a person that was a harmless fellow a minute ago turn into a snarling wolf shaped monstrosity that could tear orcs apart with their bare hands.

The woman was not convinced.

"More like the gilneans made it all up to feel like they were contributing to the liberation of Silverpine. Crowley doubtless wants his land back once Lordaeron is retaken, so he is pretending that he is helping the war effort." She snorted. Suspicious and seeing grand plots everywhere. Definitely from Stormwind City, Caledra thought.

"Why would they lie about something like that"? The man turned to face her, "What would they possibly have to gain from lying Rosie, all they want is to take back their land from the undead. Besides, we can see the fires from the bastion rising in the distance."

Rosie tittered at that. "Oh Larry, you are so innocent that it breaks my heart to tell you that this was all a trick to win General Garrick's favour once he returns with the Banshee Queen's head. Don't you see? The gilneans were hiding behind their walls when the Scourge came, and were content to remain there until this war dragged them out of their hidey-holes. Now that these mercenaries have taken the plum job of sitting in the rear when our boys and girls do all the fighting, the two are plotting to improve their standing in the eyes of the Alliance. Don't you see? Once we take Lordaeron, Crowley will petition King Varian and the council of nobles to have his lands back, and carry on living his life while our boys and girls do all his fighting for him now."

Despite herself, Caledra had to admit, Rosie's theory sounded very plausible. It was just the right mixture of conspiracy and logical deduction that made the idea hard to ignore. She herself would have believed it if Captain Stoutiron had not confirmed to her this morning about the raid on the Forsaken position between the wall and Pyrewood.

Suddenly, her keen sight caught movement in the woods. The humans had not noticed as they were still busy gossiping about something, but the details of their conversation faded as Caledra realised with a pang what the figures coming out of the woods were.

They came out of the woods, one by one, running wildly towards the safety that Pyrewood provided to their weary minds. Not even two whole days ago, they had been proud men and women of the alliance when they had marched north to liberate Lordaeron, now they were barely better than animals. Their tabards were tattered, and the quickest ones had abandoned their armour and weapons.

The guards at the entrance to pyrewood stopped their conversation and turned to look in horror at the scene unfolding before their eyes.

"W-what is going on?" The young boy, Sam asked his compatriots.

"They are retreating?" The older man's question answered the boy who wore the armour of Stormwind's soldiers.

"Oh, no. This is not happening. The Alliance is supposed to be undeafeatable! We killed the Lich King! This is a nightmare, This is not happening, I am going to wake up and see that it is all a nightmare." Rosie began to mutter under her breath. In less trying times Caledra would have tried to listen to the woman's ramblings. As it stood, it was certainly going to be trying for her.

Caledra did her best to put a stop to the murmuring. "Escort them to the lodgings, send any wounded to the infirmary we have set up in the chapel. There will be more coming, and they need our help."

Thankfully, the soldiers listened to her for now. They were dutiful men and women as long as there was a chain of command, but she could tell from their furrowed brows and shaking hands, that they were afraid for their lives. Olivar Garrick had promised that they would be the tip of the spear that liberated lordaeron. Now it seemed that they would be devoured by the Unliving who had destroyed the bulk of the Alliance army.

She counted the first survivors that had reached Pyrewood. A dozen. This was bad. There must be more. Erich had said there would be more. Entire armies could not be obliterated after a single ambush. Even at the height of their power, the Quel'Dorei had needed the help of humans to defeat the trolls. They had not wiped out every single troll that day. Far from it, the shadow war had continued for years beyond count hence, and the trolls had still been strong enough to ally with the Horde and nearly destroy Quel'Thalas. Rumours from Blood elven adventurers in Dalaran said that even now they plotted to bring an end to the Blood Elves.

Sam ran back into the town and after a few minutes, Caledra could hear the large town bell beginning to ring, calling the soldiers inside to alarm. Sooner or later they would know what had befallen the army. Meanwhile, the defeated remnants of the Alliance army kept pouring in. Patrols from the town ran to the gate to stare numbly at their comrades. Caledra however put them to work helping the routed men find a place to rest and some food to eat.

Slowly, the trickle began to turn into a stream, and then a flood. Hundreds of humans crossed the bend in the road and saw the lights of Pyrewood tinkling in the distance. Tired and exhausted as they were, seeing the alliance banners fly gave them heart and they began to sprint as if this was a race and they had seen the finish line. Encumbered by armour and weapons, a lot of them stumbled and fell, trying desperately to roll away from the press of bodies. This was a pitiful sight. They barely had any coherence left in them. This was no army. It was not even a rabble. It was a herd of cattle making for the safety of the pen, while the wolves circled out of sight. Not a single unit of soldiers had any form of cohesion left in it. The highest ranking person she had seen so far had been the half familiar features of Melrick in the rent and tattered armour of a Stormwind Lieutenant.

Dark figures rushed out of the woods tailing the army. Were the Dark rangers, her unliving kin hunting these human in the plain sight of an alliance encampment in the clear light of day? Caledra was about to raise the alarm when she saw who they were. They moved with the gait of humans, having none of the graceful movements of the Quel'Dorei or even the Dark Rangers. It seemed that some of Erich's scouts had broken cover and were helping the men and women back up to their feet, urging them on. It was a touching sight. Caledra walked back into the encampment. She had work to do, men to organise and provide food and lodging for. Pyrewood was too small for assembling and processing the remaining survivors of the battle. In fact, most of the army had camped to the south of Pyrewood when Olivar Garrick had liberated the village. Now, after the battle it seemed that they had solid roofs to sleep under for the most part.

The sun was beginning to get low in the sky when Serra finished her tally. Lodgings had been provided to the men. It was as Caledra thought. The survivors were few enough to live inside the ruined village. Now she had to return to Erich to make her report. Erich seemed like two very different people to her. When they were alone or in the company of people who were of lesser rank than him, Erich treated her with an amount of tact which spoke of expensive tutors and good breeding. In the presence of superiors or people of worth, his behaviour was far more porcine. It seemed to Caledra that he was putting on an act to rile up his higher ups and to test their limits. General Garrick had fallen for it hook, line and sinker, and the thoughts infested his men as well. At the same time, in front of a map or when planning the tiniest of details, those aspects of his character faded away. It seemed as though it were a hollow facade of bravado and uncouth callousness that hid his own cold and calcuating nature. A person who could focus his mind to form perfectly coherent military orders with the aid of an enchanted quill that wrote down his thoughts needed to have nerves of cold steel. He had asked her to get a head count of all survivors from the battle and report back to her as soon as he could. She could only hope that it meant that he had a plan.

* * *

Erich's head still buzzed. He had almost filled the chamberpot with piss and vomit, and the smell of it was infuriating. He considered tossing it's contents out of the window. At least he would be doing something productive. His mind raced with plans and stratagems each more meticulous and cunning than the last. It was an urge that he needed to resist putting on to paper. Lessons from his teachers at Nuln came to the forefront. He had laughed at them with his class once. War was waged by brave warriors, and cunning leaders, not by heavy carts laden with supplies. Of course, he had been forced to learn that the hard way.

Taking a deep breath he steadied himself and began to analyse his position from the start. Their current logistical situation was good as could be. Unless they were facing insurmountable odds, he would not abandon Pyrewood to take the long route back to Southshore unless he had to. This place was woefully unprepared for a siege however. Jam packed in the alleys and streets, their discipline would be of little use to them. He should deploy his forces along the road to repel any attempts at cutting them off. Depending on the number of survivors, they could either attempt to hold the Village or try to form a reserve to plug any gap left in the line.

It was that at this moment that Caledra walked in. Her face was paler than usual. Her bright blue eyes gave the impression of her being tired. Despite their awful condition he could not help but feel saddened for her. Herwig Alnar, one of the few humans who had been given the opportunity to venture beyond Lothern had written that elves felt emotions more strongly than humans. It could be that the situation was more dire than he thought – or less. She sat down opposite to him.

"Well, any news of the survivors?" Serra's face alone told Erich that the answer to his question was not going to be pleasant.

"A thousand, give or take." Her face was nearly as white as bone. Elves were naturally paler than men, but Caledra looked like she might pass away from blood loss at any moment. Erich focused on the information she had given rather than devouring her with his eyes. Nothing about leaders. That would be a good thing to ask.

"Any officers?"

"They were all in the vanguard with the knights. Only one survived. Melrick." Her voice was barely above a whisper and Erich had to strain his ears to hear it.

Morrslieb's glare. A thousand men and a single officer. This was terrible. The Alliance army had lost half it's number in the ambush. How could he be expected to hold a town with a single person commanding a thousand men?

An axiom from the Myrmidian cult came to his mind, unbidden. _Plan your battles around what you have, not what you lack._ He still had the men. Men enough to hold the village and offer battle to the foe. Melrick with a couple of hundred of the heavily armoured soldiers could hold the village and deny access to the enemy. The rest could easily fill the lines around his pikemen once he had picked spots for them.

"What is their composition?"

"I am sorry, what?"

"What kind of warriors escaped the ambush and made it back?"

"Men of Stormwind."

Erich cursed under his breath. Caledra was proving to be singularly useless at this juncture. He shot down the urge to shout at her. It would only fray her nerves more. Worse it would make him look like he was losing command of the situation. Morale among the survivors was bound to be terrible at best. When they heard that they were being ordered by someone who could not control his temper, it would disintegrate completely. The best thing for him to do was to keep a calm demeanour.

"What are their armaments? Do they have any weapons, armour?"

"Oh, I did not catalogue them properly. I was trying to get them settled in the buildings."

Erich laid a hand on her shoulder startling her. She squirmed as he pulled her up. To his surprise, even in the chain mail she was light. What a fragile little thing she was. Delicate, much like his father's dreams.

"Caledra, I want you to use that brain of yours. Even a rough number of our men's armaments and gear will help us immensely."

Flustered by his close proximity, she babbled something in that sing-song language of hers for a moment before saying, " A hundred or so armed with bows, crossbows and guns. The rest are all footmen in heavy armour and with their swords and shields."

Erich exhaled. A thanks to the Goddess of War rose to his lips. Nine hundred heavily armoured infantrymen and a decent skirmishing force. He had his army, in terms of numbers at least.

He went back to his table and began to draw lines on the map. Caledra leaned over, interested in what he was doing.

The rough plan now began to get refined. Between Littorio's crossbows and the bowmen, he had a small skirmish line that could harass the undead and goad them into piecemeal attacks against his defensive formations. The problem was that would become nearly useless once the main battle was joined. The only solution was to form up in self contained squares that would limit the mobility of the pikemen, but keep enough space so that the archers could fire freely in support. This would also mean that he would have to leave a gap in their lines to drive their lines apart. If the battle turned sour, the village and the closest forces to it would be cut off by a determined foe. The undead were nothing if not determined.

Of course, there was the question of artillery. The dwarf cannons were big and seemed to be useful mostly against walls, but they would reap a heavy toll on packed enemy lines if he provided them with a clear field of fire.

Initially he had thought to deploy them piece meal to goad the enemy to attack but if he placed them in a central position, they could bombard large troop concentrations and break up any push. His own cannons would be used to support the halberdiers in the rear.

After an hour of scratching his head and fine tuning his ideas, Erich looked up. Caledra was still looking at his plans with an interested eye, trying to make sense of it.

"You are still here?" What was she doing here. Erich had completely forgotten about her.

"You did not give me my orders." Caledra had regained her composure.

"There might still be small groups of stragglers coming in. They will need food and shelter. Make sure that everyone gets good food and a night's sleep. Use all the supplies in the village if you have to. Warm food and a comfortable blanket will do wonders to their morale come next morning. If Melrick is possession of his senses, tell him to come and meet me."

"Will that be all?"

"Yes, one more thing. What is it that you can do on the battlefield?"

"I was a good shot with my bow, and I have led small groups of soldiers on raids into Zul'Aman before."

"Congratulations, you just volunteered to be in command of anyone among the survivors that has a ranged weapon."

"I – I have not commanded bodies of people this large before. I mentioned that there were a hundred."

"Improvise. I am putting you in charge of the skirmishers. Withdraw behind us once the enemy gets too close. It should not be too difficult."

Caledra gulped and nodded.

"Oh, and one more thing. Tell, Hans, Luigi and Littorio – my sergeants – to get here as soon as possible."

Caledra left. After a few moments, the familiar figure of Lord Darius Crowley made itself known in his presence. He sniffed the air and said, " This room smells like an apothecary's laboratory." Then he grinned.

"It is my own handiwork. Why don't you try some of it. I placed it in that bowl just for you." Erich said pointing to the chamberpot.

"Do you think I am some sort of dog?"

"No, not quite. I do think that you must have something to report to me and are not simply dropping by to comment on the smell of the room or discuss my bodily discharges." Erich's response was caustic. He wanted to lay down and fall asleep.

"Me and my boys finished the patrol you asked me to do earlier. I have some news."

"Pray tell."

"We advanced to the site of the ambush in our other forms." Erich pursed his lip. Skin changing into a wolf was done by norscans although the Ulricans believed that the children of their god could do the same. Either way, a massive wolf-like creature could run much further and faster than the fastest of scouts ever could. On four feet, even the forested terrain would not be too difficult for them.

"The undead are around four thousand. They have killed any survivor they could find and have collected their corpses. They are marching towards ambermill to encamp in it. It would seem the Forsaken intend to cut off our route towards Southshore and besiege Pyrewood."

Most of it was not a surprise. Any army that was competently led enough to ambush someone would try to cut off their lines of communication. The only thing surprising was that the Undead were not raising the dead. Erich asked as much.

Crowley laughed. It even sounded like a bark. "The Val'kyr will be kept on their leash until we have all been killed. The bitch will not want to raise our corpses until her victory over the Alliance here is assured. The dead remember who they fought for in life, and unless they are sure to bind themselves to the Banshee Queen's cause, she is content to let them rest. Besides, her apothecaries need fresh organs to harvest."

It seemed that Val'Kyr was the Common term for Necromancer. Erich filed that information away. Then he asked. "How far away is Ambermill from here?"

"Half a day's march. Once she is finished assembling her armies there, Sylvanas will attack Pyrewood and the road. I reckon it can be done by tomorrow noon at the earliest."

Erich sighed. This was it then. The battle he had so long tried to avoid would be tomorrow. His plans needed to be relayed, and then it was time to rest.

"Get some rest Lord Crowley. You and your men. You have run hard this morning."

He smiled and extended his hand. Erich shook it. Then the man left.

Sixteen hundred living men, women dwarfs and halflings against four thousand walking corpses. Those were bad odds, but not impossible by any means. Empire armies regularly crushed large orcish incursions in the empire at those odds all the time, even Erich had been able to scrape out victories against narrower odds when he had followed Borgio the Besieger's campaign against the greenskins that festered in the , they could easily lose the battle with the current odds. Heavily armoured or not, the soldiers of Stormwind had just been crushed in a battle. Food and beds would do good for their morale but they could easily be in a fragile state. The odds now slowly began to turn away from him. What Erich needed was something powerful to even those odds. Something that could level an entire ship with a few spells. As it stood, that something had joined his regiment half a month ago.

* * *

Serra's room was tidy and clean enough. She had taken the biggest room in the tavern for herself. Nobody had minded, or at least told her they minded. Cleaning it had been trivial for a Mage of the White Tower. The air elementals in Azeroth were not too difficult to coax into doing her bidding. She sensed that they were largely afraid of something. She provided a beacon of untainted power and they coalesced around her, clinging to her. Having nothing better to do, she asked them to clean her room and carry her luggage. Her room was now cleaned to a shine. She could see the old wood under the grime that had pervaded it.

The couple of empty ledgers she had managed to scrounge up from Southshore were rapidly being filled by her notes. This world, despite outward similarities was completely different from any place in the old world and the new. Magic here was stable, and inherently less dangerous. So much so that even humans could easily use it without being corrupted. For a mage of her stature, with the right precautions, she could weave magic that would last for an eternity – or wield arcane power so destructive that it would rival the power of the greatest Lords of Chaos.

She let go of her mortal body, and explored the elements of the earth. Their attraction to her was useful, but troubling. Despite the inherently chaotic nature of magic back in the Old world, elemental entities were easy to bind. Here, they seemed distrustful of anything that harnessed their power. Her spirit began to journey deep into the earth, sinking below the ground with the speed of thought. Then she understood. The elements of Azeroth were afraid. A great upheaval had recently upset the balance of this world. They looked for stability – of any sorts. Despite what she had assumed before, the spirits were not only attracted to her. On the contrary, several creatures even in this corner of the world communed with the spirits for their daily needs.

Tusked creatures bargained with the rattled spirits, offering them protection in exchange for their aid in day to day life. To the west, in the highlands, greenskins and the undead battled humans, elves, dwarfs and other races. Even their spiritual leaders asked the elements for their aid. Despite the stench of corruption on them, the elements more often than not responded. She had known greenskin shamans to wield powerful magic before, but all she could recall was them casting it from the gestalt of their battle frenzy, calling upon their gods to aid them in battle. Serra had to remind herself that this was a different world, with different rules.

Still, not all was different. She could sense the bloodlust of the greenskins emanating in their desires. A desire to crush the men, elves and dwarfs. It seemed that the more things changed the more they remained the same.

Then she felt it. To the north, there was a fount of power both arcane and divine. It called to her senses, reminding her of the Shrine of Asuryan. Could it be? Could the creator god's divine spark burn in a world so different from her own. Her spirit began to move towards the source of power. Even as they did she felt another power. It washed over her and then it analysed her. Intrigued, she felt it's presence permeating the aethyric aura of her spirit. To Serra's surprise, it was as surprised to sense her, as she was to sense it. They basked in each other's presence for the moment. The whispers followed in an instant.

 _Power beyond imagining would be her for the taking. She, a puny half elf could rule this world forever. She was mighty. The voices would make her mightier still._ The tone of the voice was sibilant and assured in the promises it made. To a mage it was certainly tempting.

Despite herself, Serra sneered. It would seem that the pawn of the Great Deceiver was pathetic in this world. What kind of sapient creature that could wield magic would fall for such a trick? Could they not even predict what she wanted?

As if in response to her challenge, the voice washed over her once more, it's disembodied gaze searching every aspect of her being to use against her. Serra had learned to ward herself in the White Tower. Every part of her that could be used against her was shielded from even it's awesome penetrating gaze. Even so, Serra knew that eventually, the owner of the voice would find her. She slowly began to back away from the voice. It made to follow her, and then stopped. A cold laughter, if it could be called that, followed her as her body rushed back to it's spirit.

Even as the corporeal world opened up before her, she felt the last whispers attempting to snake in her mind. It might be too subtle to notice for a wizard in Azeroth, but trained as she was to keep all the whispers of the Dark Gods away from her mind, Serra erected mental wards that deafened the voice. Let the owner of the voice come. She would show it how an Asur mage fought.

Serra was considering detailing her journey in the notebook when a knock on her door startled her. She had not been disturbed yet, preferring to walk down to the inn to eat her food. The Mon'keigh shunned elves and pined after them. So none of them had decided to bother them that much. Even as she got up, the sound of a key being turned greeted her and the door to her quarters opened. The long eared elf. Caledra Dreambreeze stood there.

Serra had read her mind the first night they had met, and learned how to speak in the languages that she spoke. She had also made sure to ensure that Caledra would not remember that Serra violated her mind. In a world full of whispering voices from the depths, having someone read your memories would probably be counter productive at the least. As it was, Serra asked her a question in her native Thalassian. She spoke with an accent that perfectly imitated Caledra's and had the same vocabulary of the long eared elf.

"Yes, What do you want of me?"

Caledra looked at her for a moment before saying "Erich has requested your presence."

"What happened, has he lost his money and wants me to find it for him?" The human had mercifully left her undisturbed ever since Southshore. Serra preferred to keep it that way.

"He is calling a war council. Every officer from the remaining Alliance forces is going to be present at the town hall within the hour." Caledra seemed to be extremely tired. She looked like she had been running errands for Erich since morning.

"Oh, and why is is calling me for that? I am no military commander." Serra preferred to be left to her studies. While she was technically a member of his company, it was just to pay for her travel expenses.

"He said that your presence is of the utmost importance in the council. There have been disturbing _incidences_ lately. We require your presence." Caledra replied.

Serra furrowed her brow. The way Caledra had said incidences made her perk up her ears. She was trying to be discreet. This piqued her interest. Until she devised better ways of warding her mind from the things that lurked beneath the earth, this war council would serve as a good distraction. Maybe she might even point out the mistakes the human was bound to make.

Serra got up, and followed Caledra. Before she left, she made sure to lock the door of her room with a warding spell that would give anyone attempting to unlock the key without her permission a jolt of lightning. It never hurt to be unsafe.

The council was largely filled with the human's creatures, Serra noticed wryly. His human underlings sat around the table, interspersed by two humans, and a dwarf. To her shock, the dwarf was female and seemed to be pleasant. In the old world, dwarf women were rare to see outside their holds. In azeroth it seemed that they could be commanding armies if they wanted to. Serra had been prepared for coldness and insults. An aeon of hatred separated the Elves and the Dwarfs, even though Finubar and the dwarf high king had begun the arduous process of patching things up.

Instead the dwarf smiled at her politely. Serra had forgotten that they were in another world now, with it's own history.

Erich looked glum. Everyone around him wore a similar expression, except the dwarf. He motioned her to sit, next to the dwarf. Serra acquiesced. He spoke.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Most of you know why you are here. For those that do not, I fear I that I have ill news with which to start this council." Caledra translated for the people who did not speak reikspiel. Serra wondered how Caledra had learned it so well. Maybe she could use magic to read minds as well. It was certainly worth a thought.

As Caledra translated, Serra espied the dwarf clap a mouth to her hand. Seeing dwarfs express shock was a bit of a shock in itself.

The army that went north to take the fight to the undead has been ambushed. Half of it has been annihilated and the survivors have been trickling in throughout the day. So far, Lieutenant Melrick,"he pointed to the scattered looking dark haired man who sat wringing his hand in his chair before continuing, "is the only surviving officer from the army so far. As such, he is in charge of the alliance forces in the upcoming battle."

"Eh, signor, you said battle?" Littorio interrupted.

"Yes, Littorio. As you may know, the dead have scant need of rest, and are marching upon us even as we speak. Lord Crowley's men," A slight smirk at that word that only one of Erich's underlings – the scarred one – appreciated, " have shadowed the undead army. They tell me that they have camped in the ruins of this village to our north" His fingers tapped a point on the map. Everyone crowded to take a look.

"The undead are now in a position to either attack the village directly or cut our lines of communication at by tomorrow afternoon – if we let them. I have taken the liberty of drawing up plans to engage the undead around the outskirts of Pyrewood."

"What of their dispositions?" The golden maned and green eyed minon asked his master.

"Around four thousand, give or take." Murmuring broke out in the room as the members discussed the numbers among themselves. Asur armies had taken on the undead at these odds before, but the high elves trained for centuries as part of their militia before being sent off to war. Serra was curious how Erich was going to solve this disparity. He continued after a moment.

"Now I know that the numbers are stacked against us. However, we possess both defensive positions and artillery, along with a powerful mage lending us her aid." Everyone turned to look at Serra. Without her concealing spells, she radiated power from her very being. Once it had been mentioned, it was impossible to hide.

"Now, here are your orders."

The next hour was spent planning out the battle and everyone getting their orders. Serra only look a cursory glance at the map. It seemed the human had put a lot of thought into this plan of his. The humans were to deploy along the road while a small force protected the village from assault. They were going to break up the assault with artillery and destroy the undead forces piece meal. Curiously, she had been given no specific orders. After a while every one got up and left.

Serra made to follow them when Erich looked straight at her.

"Ah, Lady Serra, how nice of you to join us when we are on the verge of becoming undead monsters." His tone was dry. There was a dangerous glint in his eyes that Serra did not like.

"Iwas never asked for, so I stayed away."

"Well, you are here now."

"What do you want from me human?"

His severe expression broke. Now he looked deeply troubled. "What do you think of my plan?" He asked, voice laden with exhaustion.

"It is rather elaborate. You seem to have thought everything through."

He smiled, a slow sad smile.

"Yes. I have haven't I." Erich inhaled.

"Can you tell me what the flaw in my plan was, my lady?" Rhetorical questions vexed Serra. She simply shrugged.

"All my plans depend upon the undead being poorly led. Twice I have fought them, once, so many days ago, and this morning. Both of these times, the undead have been poorly led. A mob instead of an army."

"And you are afraid that this time, it is going to be a proper army, not a rabble of corpses."

"A force that can ambush a marching column of armed soldiers and decimate it, taking care kill the leadership is an army, Lady Serra. If the leader of that horde of corpses has half the brains he had to execute an ambush, he is going to break my carefully made plans like a twig."

"And you are afraid that you have nothing else except this plan. No reserves or reinforcements. If the dead win the battle, you are afraid your forces will be driven into the wilderness and destroyed."That was often the fate or armies. After losing cohesion they would be crushed and annihilated.

"Not quite. I have a mage that can set fire to an entire Bretonnian cog with a single spell. "

"That was an accident!" Serra had not been acclimatized to the magic of Azeroth then. Her spells had been far more destructive as the power here was far more malleable compared to the Winds of magic.

"It doesn't matter. I am going to tell you what happens tomorrow. Once we destroy the undead vanguard, they will launch a general attack to displace us. Our defences will fall and they will pin us down on the road and grind us down with attrition. The dwarf cannons will run out of ammunition long before they run out of bodies to throw at us. The dead do not run or rout. They will never stop coming until we are all dead."

"And you wish for me to stop such a thing from happening."

Erich's tone had been serious so far. Then his face broke into a grin. Suddenly he looked like a boy who had learned sleight of hand and was excited to show it to his friends instead of a grim mercenary captain on the verge of losing his life.

"No. In fact, I am ordering you to not reveal your presence until we are on the verge of being overrun."

"I am sorry, you want me to do what?"

Erich gestured her to sit down on a chair. Even as Serra sat down, Erich came back with an inkpot and a fresh sheaf of paper. In his had was the feather she had enchanted."Please sit down. It is better if I show you what I think instead of explaining it." His voice was giddy even as his hands moved on the parchment off their own accord.

* * *

Caledra stood with her soldiers in the light of the early morning sun. It was a cold day. By the end of the month, it would begin to snow. She could feel it in her bones. Snow was a distant memory in Quel'thalas, where the worst ravages of the weather had been held back with the arcane might of the high elves. Here, in Silverpine, the weather changed, unfettered by magic of any sort. Like the flow of the rivers, it was unconstrained and unstoppable. You could dam a river, but the flow would only be bottled up, waiting patiently with the fortitude of the elements for the facade to crack before rushing and resuming the course of nature.

An hour ago, She had been eating breakfast with Erich and Serra. The fare was largely Alliance rations for officers. A bit too rich for her liking, she had noticed Erich and Serra at home with the food. Erich had set the table for them all. He had called himself with a strange foreign title when introducing himself to Lord Crowley. It seemed that he could set knives and forks as well as any page in Stormwind Keep. The breakfast itself was light. They would be fighting a battle before long. A few slices of bread, Darnassian bleu and a slice of ham along with a few fruits from hillsbrad were the only thing all three of them had eaten, before washing it down with some Merlot. Spartan would have been the best way to describe it.

Druid moonclaw had flown into the tavern right after they had finished. Compared to the last time, he was well composed. Shapeshifted into his form in a far more graceful manner. Serra kept her eyes on the spell the entire time. It seemed that the half elf was very interested in magic of any sort.

The news was expected. The forsaken were on the march. They would be there within the hour. Their Dark rangers were already on the outskirts of Pyrewood, being ambushed by the Gilneans.

Now Caledra stood at the forefront of the rapidly deploying army. Focusing her heightened senses, she could feel the tramp of marching feet in the earth ahead of her, different to the tramp of the feet behind her. The Forsaken were moving with a purpose. Behind her, Erich had deployed his men in a solid block of troops. They held their pikes high and yawned or lazed around for the most part. The alliance forces to his left stood ready. Their morale might be low, but Caledra could see that they were prepared for another long slog. Erich had been right. A full belly and warm food had done wonders for them. It helped that instead of an army on the march, they were now an army expecting battle.

In contrast to the Alliance Footmen, the mercenaries looked drab. Most of them were armed with a single breastplate and carried a simple sword to go along with their pikes. Their flamboyant clothing looked like a joke about the grimness of war. She cocked her ear and heard what Erich was talking about. Something about money, what he had eaten for breakfast and if the beer was good. This was no way for warriors to behave. A fear seized Caledra. They were not warriors at all. She, the commander of the Alliance forces had trusted the mercenaries to fight off the forsaken. They were not prepared to fight the undead, not at all. It would have been better if she had countermanded his orders and abandoned Pyrewood.

A sudden yell from one of the archers brought her attention to the front. She could understand his panic. The Forsaken army had arrived.

They marched in a horrific parody of the living, often having their bones exposed and flesh rotting. At the same time, the weapons and armour they wielded was a mixture of old Lordaeron gear, things looted from the defeated Alliance army and clothes and armour they had once proudly worn in another life. They stopped, seeing the deployed forces against them, and a low murmur arose through their ranks. It seemed that the Forsaken were expecting a cowed down force hiding behind the walls of Pyrewood, not an army prepared to meet them on the field of battle.

Then the murmurs became yells and shouts, carried over by the wind. While she could not understand what the dead said, their intent was quite clear. They had crushed an alliance army before, and they would do so again on this day. A few of the archers and hunters under her command quailed at the shouts, the events of the previous day flooding into their minds. They would break, flee, get caught and murdered. Caledra gripped her bow tightly. The Forsaken army began to march forward. In a few moments, they would be within arrow range. This was it. The end of the line for them. Even the mercenaries were deathly silent.

As the undead advanced, cries of alarm rose from the ranks of the Stormwind soldiers. Their resolve was shaken. Yesterday, the forsaken had butchered them mercilessly, and fresh from the victory, they advanced intent of scourging the lands clean of the living. A few half hearted yells from the Alliance ranks failed to penetrate the droning buzz of the noise the advancing forsaken army made. The soldiers of the alliance could barely even hurl insults at their foes. How could they be expected to fight their foes? This was madness. Then she heard it.

A large thud that sounded like wood striking into the dirt. She looked behind her to see the source of this new sound.

The mercenaries now stood at attention. Erich was at their forefront, wearing his ostentatious cap with feathers in it. His sword was drawn and in his other hand he held a pistol. Like a conductor using his baton, he was creating an impromptu tune to cut through the din of the yells.

 _Thud, thud, thud._ A pause. _Thud, thud, thud._

The synchronised sound drove out all the din and the cries. The soldiers of the Alliance startled looked to their left and saw a group of mercenaries showing something that they had been lacking ever since the march into Silverpine began. Confidence. They were men and women of Stormwind, a nation of heroes that had risen from the ashes to splendour once more. And their morale was being mocked by a lowly group of poorly armoured men who fought with large spears. In the midst of battle, anger was as good as courage. And the mockery from their own ranks had bolstered them into holding their positions on the battlefield. Cries of alarm became shouts. She could hear it To her right, a man, a hunter by trade was yelling. "For the Alliance!"

The Alliance had held true to the High elves even when they had all but left it since the second war. She had been on the run, hungry and starving when simple peasants around Tyr's hand had taken her in. A lot of her friends had not made it safely to Southshore. Cut off from the sunwell, the Quel'Dorei had suffered immensely and a lot of the survivors from Arthas' Rampage had simply died due to the thirst overcoming them. The humans, dwarves and gnomes of the alliance had helped them when the High elves looked down upon them as fools. She had found an honest job in Stormwind, and even now was part of an army that represented the spirit of the Alliance at it's finest. Brave bands of humans, dwarfs, elves and even gnomes, banding together so that the world might be safer as it was in the years past. They had defeated the Lich King. They would defeat the Banshee Queen.

The undead were now in within arrow shot. It was time to put Erich Von Peiper's ideas to the test. She notched an arrow, and saw the soldiers under her command do the same. Picking her target, a Forsaken officer who seemed to be more armoured than most of his minions, she fired. The arrow flew true and straight, hitting the creature's spine with a pinpoint force that tore the weakened spine and dropped it dead. The rest of the arrows did not matter. Seeing their officer get broken by an arrow, the front ranks of the forsaken charged with unholy shrieks rending the air in front of them.

* * *

Erich was home. No matter how much his father pined for Solland as an abstract concept that would rise again, no matter how much he himself wished to be back in Nuln or Miragliano, deep down in his heart, Erich knew that this was home. His father had wanted him to be a Lord of many men as befit a Noble of Solland. In a way, he had fulfilled his father's wish, but like all things when it came to his father, Erich knew that the man would disappointed in his son.

His pikemen had formed into rough squares behind the wooden breakers to repel the undead. It seemed to do it's job well. An hour ago, he had seen Caledra lead her skirmishers behind the lines of the assembled army and besides Littorio's crossbowmen. The clumsy shambling corpses that had followed her were even now struggling to break through the forest of pikes pointed at them. Erich was proud of his men in a way his father never had been proud of him. He had heard the whispers of the soldiers during their march into Pyrewood of course. Caledra had helped him learn the language and he had put it to good use. Garrick thought his soldiers were looters that were badly armed, armoured and trained. It had swept down the ranks, and even when they had been routed, the proud warriors of the Alliance had detested them.

After all, they were mercenaries. Dogs of War, soldiers of fortune who were despised by those that fought with nobler causes. And yet, at the end of the day, they were needed – no essential even – for war. The tileans had recognized that long ago. Mercantile city states led by trade princes and petty barons, they might aspire to greatness, but kept their feet firmly on the ground. Money was the lifeblood of war, not men. And at the end of the day, no matter how the bright banners fluttered in the breeze, they would need money. Mercenaries learned that lesson too. In fields of Tilea soldiers who were unconstrained by the notion of honour, and glory. Honour was a millstone that dragged enterprising men to their doom. Glory was of little comfort when you lay dead in the midst of a battlefield.

And so it was here. From the corner of his eyes, he could see the alliance forces that lay between him and Luigi slowly being pushed out by the mass of the dead. On the contrary, his pikemen had taken their time to fight in an interlocking formation that withstood charge after charge of the shambling corpses, taking very little damage in return. The most agile warrior could dodge, one, two, or even three sharp spearpoints directed at him. But there was a fourth, fifth and a sixth ready to send the bastard back to whatever hell he or she had come from. It seemed that in Lordaeron and Stormwind, men and women fought in battle side by side. Erich had heard rumours that the elves did the same.

Whatever it was, it clearly was not working. All of the artillery was being directed to support the lines of heavy infantrymen that were being attacked by the forsaken. Every few minutes, entire volleys of cannonballs and exploding rounds from mortars buried themselves in the Undead line taking scores of the corpses with them. Yet, slowly but steadily, the alliance force in centre was being pushed back. Before long they would be completely isolated.

In contrast the pikemen held their ground stubbornly. Hundreds of corpses were sent back to their natural state for every inch of ground they took from the men of Tilea. Scores died for the loss of one of their own. Richly armoured and looters they might be, Erich's company was not undisciplined. He had noticed that the men of Lordaeron and Stormwind referred to themselves as warriors. They might preen and prance and look pretty at a parade, but battles were won by soldiers. And what made a soldier was discipline and trust in the man next to him. T

He men of the Old world, through hardship and sacrifice had learned that millennia ago. Greenskins and the Beastmen were more numerous than them. Skaven and the dead outnumbered them. The only reasons why humans had thrived in a world that wanted them dead was not through valour and honour alone, but by subsuming them to a collective ideal to strive towards. In a way the Dogs of war were an ultimate personification of that idea. Men, halflings, and even wayward elves dwarfs and the occasional Ogre or giant, bound together for the collective betterment of their station in a world that desperately wanted them dead. Only, in their case, their ideals were not lofty goals like a land rising up to meet it's returning heroes. It was the simplest of things on which the world ran. Money.

The day wore on, and Erich's Soldiers ground down the foe again and again, holding the western eastern approaches into the town. Their pike square had taken an appreciable toll, and now the bodies of dead Tileans were visible among the rotting and dessicated remains of the undead. Still, Sven had done his job, and the banner held high. Suddenly the last remaining corpses shambled, and retreated, attempting to run away. The artillery had long since delivered their payload, allowing Hans' halberdiers to advance. He now held a portion of ground between the lines of Alliance soldiers, their darkened plate still visible among the bright and overly armoured soldiers.

A harsh horn bayed in the distance. Erich craned his neck to the north, and towards the baying of the horn. Then on the horizon, he beheld the entirety of the enemy commander's plan.

While Erich had been busy fighting in the centre, he had only the vaguest of ideas what had been happening over the rest of the battlefield. Now, free of the press of bodies, he observed what the dead had done even as they had engaged the defenders of Pyrewood. All the embrasures and and minor fortifications Littorio had erected yesterday to funnel the enemy into the centre of their formations was gone. The entire field had been levelled clean. And on the other side, another wave of undead warriors stood at the ready. Even from this distance, the way they held themselves spoke of a large amount of training. Dark armour covered their bodies for the most part, and their shields bore a common insignia.

And beside them, stood mounted warriors. Something about the way their steeds stood chilled Erich to his core. In life, the horses must have been proud and noble enough for a Bretonnian Duke to ride, but in death, they were eerie. Horns sprouted out of their bare skulls, and as the sun moved west, their visage grew all the more terrible. The people of Sylvania told in stories of Black Knights, heroes of the Empire that had been raised to serve as minions to necromancers and vampires. It seemed that here in Lordaeron things were not so different.

Even as he took stock of the situation, this new force parted. Three figures walked out among them, staring at the detritus of the battlefield. Erich did not need to see their shapes to figure out who they were. It seemed the opposing commander was taking stock of the battlefield even as he was. From the distance, a hateful gaze that was unnatural seemed to focus on him as this commander took stock of Erich's mettle. All he could do was not cower under that glare. He held himself firm as the gaze intensified. Right when he felt his mind slipping away it stopped. The three figures retreated behind the lines of the assembled army.

The dead came on again. With a frightening pace, they crossed the distance to join the battle. A few arrows from what remained of Caledra's soldiers fired. Some bodies dropped, but the dead simply picked up the pace. In a few minutes, they would crash upon the tired Alliance formation and Luigi's men. He could hear Rudi play his flute over the distance, nestled among Luigi's box. Erich's formation at the centre held the banner. Sven had kept the banner flying all day. If it dipped, it meant that the line would waver, and when it did, the battle would be lost. Even now as he took his position in the midst of his men, his eyes scanned the horizon for the artillery formation. His final gambit lay safely within, guarded by his halberdiers, who made up the only reserve he had.

* * *

"BRACE." The command was clear. Erico heard it and gripped his pike tightly. He was now at the second line. Benedict had died and he had dutifully taken his place. Now the Capitan had given the command, and he would obey. His pike was held at an oblong angle, to take the brunt of the charge coming their way. Unlike the rest of the line, the enemy horse was directed straight at their lines. It seemed that the village itself was still held to Erico, forcing the enemy to charge into them instead of using the village. From the Capitan's self satisfied face, Erico seemed to think that the battle was going according to his plan.

Erico had heard that the Capitan Valdoz's company had fought against greenskins and beastmen in greater number than before, and his successor carried on his legacy with pride. Erico had joined Von Peiper's Regiment expecting he would cover himself in gold, glory and women – not necessarily in that order. So far he had been getting a taste of it. If he acquitted himself well in the battle, maybe he would rise in rank.

The unearthly shriek of the charging horses jerked him back to his senses. They were fighting an enemy that did not grow tired, felt no pain and would continue to march on an empty stomach. The Capitan better have a damn good plan, for Erico had no desire to be raised as a shambling corpse to serve some necromancer's fiendish desires. The only way out of this was to trust his superiors and hold on tightly to his pike.

The horses were close now, and he could see the unholy fire in their eyes as they galloped as surely as if they were in the prime of their life. A wall of bones, rotting flesh armour and black magic crashed into their braced line. Erico's spear shook in his hands and nearly snapped, but the was rewarded by his diligence when he saw the horse fall and turn back into a simple corpse. The rider struggled to get up but someone behind poked at it with his spear. The armour was good enough and the tip of the pike bounced off it. Then someone else jabbed their pike right in the undead knight's face. It's weakened skeletal face exploded in bits of bone and gore, and it joined it's mount in a crumpled heap.

Thrice the knights withdrew to form up for another charge, their numbers lessening each time, and thrice they were repulsed. Another blast from the horn signalled their final retreat. A ragged cheer went up along the line. They had done the impossible. They had beaten back the charge of the dead knights and held firm. They were victorious in a sea of corpses.

And then Erico saw them. Angels flying through the air, coming towards them, to carry the dead to rest. In his life so far, Erico had not been very religious, scoffing at the entire notion of the divine. But now, at the close of the battle, he saw them. Norscans were said to believe the souls of those who died in battle would be borne by winged maidens who carried them to a realm of eternal feasting and war. Even from this distance, they were moved with a grace that could simply not be described. They hovered over the broken remnants of the undead army that was rapidly reassembling and began to sing in a mournful dirge.

His soul was chilled by the rhythm of their melodies, and something primal woke up in him. Men stared agape at the flying maidens who now floated closer, their voices rising up to a coherent song. It was beautiful beyond words and several men dropped their weapons as the chorus rose to a cresendo, falling to their knees at the sight.

And where men fell on their feet, the dead rose. The shambling corpses rose to unlife once more slaughtering the men now that they were caught off guard. A sword stabbed Erico in the throat and he fell down face skyward. The last thing he ever heard was the Capitan's voice calmly saying the words, "Sven, Drop the standard."

* * *

Serra could feel something wrong in the air as the angelic women approached. There was a grace to them that was not wholly corporeal. The way they beat their wings reminded her of Phoenixes, the chosen of Asuryan who burned with the god's eternal flame. Still, the aura that surrounded these winged sirens was subtly wrong. It was as if they were a mockery of something far greater. She had observed similar things in human settlements built on the ruins of elven colonies from when the Asur had settled the old world in large numbers. The bretonnians built their castles like elven towers, but true skill was beyond humans. Their towers came out short, broad and ugly, much like their race, in contrast to the slender minarets and spires of the Asur.

So it seemed to her with these flying women. They had been in mockery of something far more powerful than them before, the power that permeated them a mixture of shadow magic and the disharmonious chaos of the warp. To her heightened mage senses, they were a parody, artfully crafted, but never able to grasp the essence of what they mocked. Even so, their music had a haunting quality to it that Serra was able to decode. She felt the tug of magic in the air and realised what was happening as their chorus reached a crescendo.

As soon as the standard dropped, Serra knew her time had come. The signal had been given. Even as her mind worked at a mighty spell, her body moved of it's own accord standing in front of the heavily armoured halberds that Erich had ordered to protect her. Spells from the Lore of light, Hysh blazed through the air in a blinding brilliance, striking down the singing women even as the dead began to rise. The lore of light was an anathema to dark magic, and even as the raised corpses disintegrated as her spells passed through them, Serra realized that they would be outnumbered and overrun. This battle, mighty as she was was beyond her control. Faced with her own mortality, even Serra's disciplined mind could not cope with the fact that the end might be soon for her.

Summoning the last reserves of her fortitude, Serra's spirit left her body. Time almost seemed to stop as she walked into the spirit realm. Despondent, her mind went out to Asuryan, Father of all the elves, asking for guidance in this trying time. Far away, from a rift between worlds, his holy power answered. Serra's spirit returned to her body, rejuvenated from the contact with the Creator's cleansing flame. Even as the dead continued to rise in greater numbers, using her staff as a conduit Serra channeled the flame of Asuryan himself, focusing on the ember she had once seen in the White Tower of Hoeth.

As if in response, a Blazing Phoenix, made of holy flame rose up. It's shriek drowned out the incantation of the winged maidens, stopping their incantation. A small portion of the god's power had broken through into this world. It burned through the ranks of the newly raised dead, and those that raised them alight, resembling a phoenix in flight. Even as if burned them, it's flame grew brighter before it dissipated. With an insight she never had before, Serra saw the true threat. One of the maidens in the centre was their leader. Without them, the Forsaken would flee.

Melding the winds of magic in a way that was beyond the capacity of the strongest human, she launched a ball of Quaysh, capable of quenching the soul of the dead. It rushed towards the three figures that lurked at the back of the Undead host, seeking out their souls to unshackle from their unholy bondage. In response, the entire flock of flying women interspersed themselves between their leader and the ball of harmonious energy that sought to purify them. As if by itself, the ball tore through the lesser creatures, before striking the one among them that was the true leader of this necromantic song, extinguishing her utterly. The rest of the winged women cried a great cry, and then dissipated into thin air, their magical presence fading into nothing. They had been destroyed.

Serra wiped the sweat from her bow. In the span of real time, the entire display of magic had taken a few minutes. To her trained mind, the distance she had walked out of time to seek Asuryan was daunting. The Creator god had promised her answers, and she would seek them out in due course.

The dead were retreating. Serra could see the woman who led them stare daggers into Erich. In life she might have been beautiful. Her long ears marked her out as elvenkind, but death had claimed her all the same. Now she was a creature of hate, much like the humans who hankered after eternal life.

The human soldiers, both of the Alliance and the Tileans began to pray, thanking their gods. They had survived battle and been victorious. It had humbled them.

Not all of them. A single figure stood apart from the mass of soldiers taking in the sight of the setting sun. The ostentatious cap gave away who he was. Serra had to admit his plan had worked flawlessly. Unlike most generals, he had not underestimated his foe on the field of battle, and kept Serra in reserve. She knew that Prince Tyrion, brother of Prince Teclis was an avowed strategist and tactician apart from being a peerless fighter. It seemed that Erich had some similar qualities, despite being cast from a different mould. In the light of the setting sun, at the end of a battle, Erich Von Peiper was a person she would follow into the hinterlands of Naggaroth without question.

Perhaps humans were not invariably mediocre after all.

* * *

 _ **Thanks for all the support guys. Next chapter will be up soonish.**_

 ** _Oh, Thanks James Koach for catching a major mistake I made regarding Caledra's first section. I kept the draft in instead of writing a full write up._**


	16. Chapter 16

**Intelligence**

* * *

Stormwind, even during the best of times was a city that was nearly filled to bursting with the life it contained. Ever since the third war, survivors from Lordaeron, Quel'Thalas and even a few Alterac stragglers had made their way into the city, seeking peace from the horrors of the Scourge and the Forsaken. As a result, the city's population had exploded rapidly. Thankfully, the city had been designed by some of the finest Architectural minds humanity had to offer. Edwin Van Cleef, no matter how traitorous he was, had been an excellent Architect and planner.

Now, as the shadows of war had given way to the blazing brilliance of open conflict, the city was full of adventurers looking to make a name for themselves. The Alliance had been attacked by the Horde ever since the Cataclysm had occurred and Deathwing walked free upon the Mortal plane once more. This was a time for bold heroes to venture forth boldly where no one had gone before. In short, the relative peace before Lady Prestor had been unmasked had given way to the demands of war. Stormwind harbour was packed with ships sailing north to Southshore and Theramore. Just last week, King Varian had returned in triumph from Ashenvale, having driven the Horde out of the ancient homeland of the Night Elves. The city was jubilant at the return of their Valorous King, and even the disappearance of Archbishop Benedictus was forgotten.

As the ship approached the quay, a number of soldiers and adventurers began to clamber down from the gangplank, their faces grim. So far, the Horde's retreat from Ashenvale had only made them focus the bulk of their efforts on the domain of Theramore. Northwatch had been invested, but could hold for years unless the Horde took it by storm. At the same time, the barrens had nearly been lost, and large numbers of stormwind troops were retreating from Theramore. Their job in the barrens had been a miserable Failure. Jaina Proudmoore had assured them that Theramore could hold it's own for the time being, and the soldiers were now being deployed to fronts that required more attention from the Battlemasters of the Alliance.

Peggy Cogwhistle was one of the several adventurers aboard the ship when it docked. She was a dab hand at magic, and enchanting pieces of armour for soldiers and adventurers was always a good source of secondary income. Unfortunately for her, she was still learning the concept of long distance teleportation, and she had used her only Rune when they had been ambushed in the Silverpine forests. They had appeared to the front of Lady Proudmoore's tower itself, causing a minor panic as they warned the guards of an ambush.

The Archmage had been more receptive of them. Taking in their report with a understanding manner. They were still novice mages for the most part, who had trailed the Alliance forces and their first taste of real combat had unnerved them. A battle, as Peggy had found out was quite different from clearing mines of Troggs and Kobolds. Lady Proudmoore had sent a message to Stormwind, but the King was still returning from Kalimdor. As it stood, Peggy had arrived only a day later after the King's own forces had returned to Stormwind in triumph.

The head of a Magnataur was hoisted over the entrance to the city from the harbour and the lambent aura of festivity hung in the air. In a war that was rapidly turning into a meatgrinder while the world trembled at the return of deathwing, any victory, no matter how short was seized upon and celebrated. Peggy wondered what would happen if they learned of the Alliance defeat in Silverpine. Dana had been sent there as an envoy of Theramore, just as Penny had been sent to Stormwind. The rest of her party had elected to stay behind in Theramore and help with the war efforts there. She only hoped that they would be safe.

The Canals were patrolled by groups of the Stormwind City guard regularly. In the distance, the Stockades loomed over her head. Penny had gone there once, years ago to collect red scarves made by the prisoners there. Of course, the prisoners had overpowered the city guard stationed there, and her small group had been forced to flee, but not before Peggy had managed to acquire several scarves and masks from dead bandits.

She clutched the official parchment and Lady Proudmoore's signet ring closely to her. She was here on official business as a temporary envoy of Theramore. Once her work here was done, she would get an handsome reward that she could spend on some drink. In the distance, she could hear the proclamations of King Varian being shouted by criers and heralds. They could hopefully provide her with work that paid well.

Stormwind Keep's massive doors opened up before her, when the guard saw the diminutive gnome carry official documents from Theramore and Lady Proudmoore's signet ring. Her slightly dishevelled appearance and her small staff stood at odds with the rich ring and the expensive paper that had been sealed magically. Peggy knew enchantments like that. Only the King himself would be able to open it. Anyone else would have to shred the letter to even attempt to glean information, which would of course destroy the contents itself. Maybe, if she had enough time, Peggy would attempt to cast the same enchantments. After all, in stormwind and the House of Nobles, Letters that were unreadable would be an edge in their game of political one-upmanship.

The future opened up in front of Peggy Cogwhistle as she strode into the Keep itself.

* * *

Erich had to admit, given the limited resources that Lieutenant Melrick had been given, the man had done a fairly decent job of holding the village itself. Corpses, most of them already long dead littered the entrance to the village. It seemed that a small undead force had attempted to assault Pyrewood itself during the battle. A few soldiers, with the man himself among them were standing in like getting a drink. Compared to the nervousness yesterday, Melrick seemed at ease completely. He stood straight in his armour, laughed loudly and often and drank copious amounts of beer.

The man's relaxed demeanour reminded Erich of himself a long time ago. The first battle everyone fought in was mostly an embarrassing affair. For a moment, all your training fades to the back of your mind and the animal instinct to preserve yourself takes over. All that remains to pin a soldier in his designated place is the stern command of his superior and the jeers of his fellows. In the aftermath of the battle. All those fears recede, largely never to return. By the time you are in the third battle, you might as well be an old campaigner, looking forward to the next meal and drinking game.

Still, it would be useful to get a tally of the dead and wounded. Erich's Sergeants were counting out the survivors even now. When he had left to inspect the village, it had been fifty eight men dead, and a similar number would be dying in the next few days. There was nothing to do. Erich had used up every trick he had to win the battle, but the flying necromancer-women had nearly seen it undone. It just was not fair. An army that could raise the dead in the field to serve again was not just terrifying, it was _unfair._

Still, that was how warfare worked. Fairness never came into it. Erich had to adapt, or die. So far he had been doing the former rather easily. The cohesion of the forces he had been fighting with and against seemed almost non-existent in comparison with the discipline he had seen in the Armies of the Empire, and even the Bretonnian Knights. A hundred Bretonnians charging in a Lance formation terrified even the oldest Sergeant facing them, and even the blood crazed Norscans were wary about them. In contrast, these undead mockeries had crumbled when faced with a braced line of pikes. The biggest worry was replenishing losses.

That was a problem for another time. Right now Erich needed to know what the disposition of Melrick's forces were. This victory would not matter if the undead were to raise another army from the corpses and kill them while they slept. He would need to burn the corpses. His men were already preparing the funeral rites by stripping the corpses of anything valuable like money, weapons and armaments. Looting the dead was a time honoured tradition. Noble warriors might look down upon the common men and mercenary scum stealing trinkets and gold from the dead, but they took far grislier trophies for themselves all the same. Mercenaries were just efficient at it.

"Lieutenant Melrick, My congratulations on holding the village itself. You led your men admirably." Erich knew the man had done nothing of too much importance to the battle. The few corpses that the dead had left behind were proof of that. Nevertheless, like every soldier, Melrick straightened up on a commendation from his superior officer. He smiled for a moment and then saluted Erich.

"Thank you, My lord. We showed them what the Men of the Alliance can do to those that threaten them." The man was proud of what he had accomplished. The fact that he had held a defensive location with larger numbers of troops did not seem to get into his head.

"Yes, before you get too invested in the merry afterglow of victory, I want you to burn the corpses." Erich was about to leave when a few shocked gasps made him turn about. The men of Stormwind were looking at him with a mixture of horror and disgust. Melrick's mouth was agape.

"What is the matter?"

"You would burn the bodies of our warriors without telling their families?" The man's question was as genuine as any Erich had faced. It seemed that the people of Stormwind did not appreciate the threat of corpses that could be raised in the same way that the men of the Old World did.

"Yes."

"Why?"

Erich sighed. This would be irksome. He paused and composed himself for a moment. "Gentlemen. I understand that we have lost friends and comrades in defending this place. You would like to bury them with honour. However, the fact remains that our foe will attempt to raise the corpses of our friends and kill us. If we do not dispose of their corpses safely, they will kill us. The foe attempted to do the same to us"

Faced with the logic of his orders, some of the fire in Melrick's eyes died out. The man had not seriously considered that. The warriors never picked a battlefield clean or made sure that their supplies and loot were safe in the aftermath of a battle. It was the little things that made being a mercenary profitable. A dozen small trinkets instead of a large piece of plate or a bar of gold instead of a bar of silver could mean a person retiring after a few good campaigns instead of living the life of a wandering soldiers.

Before Erich left, he had one more question to ask Melrick. The man was muttering something to his men, their moods considerably darkened after Erich's orders. As it was, when they turned to answer his question, they largely scowled at him.

"Lieutenant. What do you know of winged women who raise the dead to fight against the living?" The soldiers were confused by Erich's question and began talking among themselves. Everyone except Melrick, whose face had gone white.

"W-Why do you ask My Lord?"

"Some of them tried to do the same when the Forsaken were on the verge of losing the battle. We killed them and then they fled."

"You killed the Val'kyr?" The man began to speak to himself under this breath. The action was unwholesome to Erich's sensibilities. The entire thing reminded him of flagellants and mad cultists that seemed to pop up in the seedier parts of any town. A person could not drink in peace without someone offering to either save his soul or give him unlimited power.

"Yes. We did. Then their army retreated." Erich emphasised that last point. Maybe the man would stop stammering now.

Instead Melrick sat down and had a drink. And then another. Erich tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for the man to finish. After a while, when the beer had gone to his head, he stood up and smiled.

"Good. Good. We will bury the bodies. The dead will not be troubling us for a while." His drunken confidence was at odds with his panicked demeanour just a moment ago. It seemed that he had fortified himself with grog after hearing Erich's declaration.

"Did you not hear what I said?"

"Yes, yes. I did. But you defeated them. We will have some time before they raise the dead again. We will bury the corpses safely."

"How can you be so sure?" Erich was astounded at the man's declaration. Clearly drunkenness did not drastically improve Melrick's tactical acumen.

"We have been burying corpses for long enough to keep them away from the hands of the dead." Melrick managed to reply between hiccups.

Erich turned around and left. The man was completely hammered. He would have to sober up before Erich could bully him into permanently disposing the corpses.

To his pleasant surprise, during his walk back to his quarters, most of the warriors of Stormwind cheered him as he walked by. This was quite the contrast to the cold reception he had received by Garrick. Clearly, the common soldiery now thought better of him than they had the previous month. Winning a victory against a formidable army tended to raise one's reputation.

Feeling pleased with himself, Erich was able to convince two of the soldiers to hoist a cask of Ale upstairs where he was living. Filling a tankard full of the thick liquid, Erich drank deep, and soon enough was fast asleep, giving in to his body's demands after the exertions of the last two days.

* * *

Caledra was relieved. The adrenaline of the battle had worn off, and now there a pleasant tiredness to her limbs. Pyrewood, which yesterday had seemed so dreary was now a pleasant place. Most soldiers, both the mercenaries and the warriors of stormwind now thronged the streets, chatting with each other. Music from a dozen different instruments flowed down the street, and casks of wine and beer were broached. After a long time, Pyrewood basked in the glow of lit streets and the sound of laughter and cheer coming from houses long abandoned.

Despite the language barrier, the men and women of the Alliance were sharing their repasts with the mercenaries. Caledra had to admit that what doubts she had about the fighting spirit of Erich's men had disappeared. She had seen them fight, and it had surprised her. These mercenaries trusted each other utterly and watched over each other's backs in the thick of battle. Doing something like that required incredible discipline. Warriors were taught to use their instincts and think with their heart in the midst of battle because it was often more reliable. The brain had a tendency to shut down under pressure. These mercenaries never relied on their instincts, rather trusting in their leaders to make the right decision and then following it to the letter. She was very impressed by their efficiency. Even their funny helmets looked less stupid than before.

After a couple of hours of wandering, looking for Erich, she felt tired and was about to go to bed when the a familiar figure accosted her near the town hall. Lieutenant Melrick was walking quickly towards her. She raised a hand to hail him, and he almost sprinted towards her, puffing. Caledra noticed that he still had his armour on, which meant he was still on duty.

"Caledra, hello." He said, while his eyes moved shiftily scanning the road.

"Lieutenant Melrick. It is a pleasure to see that you are alive and in one piece." Which was largely the truth. The mercenaries might have held off the forsaken through grit and discipline combined with the superior range of their impractical weapons, but for the Men of the Alliance, the battle had been closer. Fully a third of their forces were either dead or in no condition to fight.

It was fortunate that the forsaken had been crushed so utterly.

"Thank you. Defending the town was a hard enough task. Were you fighting in the battle too?"

"Yes, I was. Erich put me in charge of the archers." His eyes widened at that. The human did not know that Caledra had been a farstrider. She never mentioned it to him during their journey from Stormwind.

"Wait, you are saying that you fought alongside him?" Melrick's voice was considerably louder. He smiled and continued. "I must get you a drink. Holding the town meant that I was cut off from the outside world. Deathwing could have flown overhead and I would not have noticed."

Caledra smiled weakly. She had of course been there the day Deathwing had attacked Stormwind directly. All the might of the Alliance had not even annoyed the massive monster. It had taken Onyxia's head and flown off after laying waste to the park. It had been a humbling day for all the heroes and adventurers, not to mention the entire Alliance leadership.

"Of course. Lead the way."

To a bit of her surprise, the way was to the town hall. A few of the soldiers had stacked empty boxes to act as furniture. While the place still retained it's abandoned vibe, it was slowly becoming more lived in. A month here would make this place feel almost like home.

Melrick came back in a moment with two mugs full of beer and offered one to her. Caledra graciously accepted.

After making herself comfortable, she began to tell her story of the battle. Melrick was a fun, if little sloppy person to talk to. In contrast to Erich's biting remarks and constant interruptions, he barely spoke anything of interest. He mostly nodded and agreed with her assessments while drinking his beer.

An hour later, Caledra had finished narrating her battle and was feeling drowsy. Melrick offered to escort her back to the inn, but there was no need. Pyrewood was not big enough to get lost in. The inn would have the most people surrounding it.

* * *

Melrick watched Caledra go. He had to admire the poise of the elves. She had drunk a lot of alcohol and carried herself straight. She would not need an escort to go back to her quarters. He on the other hand...

He pushed two fingers down his throat. After a moment, he gagged, taking care to puke into a chamberpot. Come morning, he could pretend that he had drunk a lot and had fallen asleep at the table. Immediately, he took out a sheaf of parchment and began to write. His letter were brief and to the point.

 _Dear Grand Uncle._

 _I am writing you this letter from the misty pinewoods of northern Gilneas. My outing here has been most successful. Our new friends both of the two and four legged variety are as good and helpful as can be possible. While our trip to the ancient Monastery has been cut short by inclement weather, it was not entirely without purpose. Of the barriers to our business venture in the north, a significant has been removed by my friends._

 _You told me a long time ago, that money cannot buy friendship. It would seem that it can buy something that is just as good for what we need. The light watches over us all._

 _I will be returning soon. Give Father and Mother my love, and tell them to look for a bride for me._

 _Your own,_

 _Melrick._

He went over it thrice. Nothing important A simple and elegant letter. Then he flipped it over. A simple picture of an angel wearing a mask was crudely sketched after some difficulty. His letter was finished.

Now all it required was a someone to post it. Someone who could reach his Uncle who resided in the Old Town of Stormwind city. Melrick had just the right person in mind.

* * *

Mathias Shaw was not a busy man to anyone who walked into his office. A small room, fit for a bureaucrat, crammed largely with large amounts paper would make him look like one of the dozens of men who kept the Military in order. Bureaucrats were required for war as much as for peace, and now more than ever, the alliance needed more bureaucrats. The adolescent boy dressed smartly in the uniform of a Page of the Keep, sitting in front of him thought him one of those paper pushers. A sealed envelope with a royal seal lay upon his table.

Using his knife, carefully disguised as a letter opener, he opened it and read it, before sighing and putting it at the bottom of his pile. The boy smiled and got up. His work done, the page would spend some time in the taverns of the Old Town before returning to the keep. He closed the door and Shaw heard the pitter-patter of his feet slowly fade.

He got up and began to rearrange his files. The newest paper he had received was thrown into the torch, along with the letter he had previously been reading. He paused and counted till five before beginning to shove some of the boxes. The volume of boxes made it a little difficult, but Shaw was a strong man. One did not rise to his position with just brains alone.

A small trapdoor under the pile of boxes was now visible. He opened it and climbed down the ladder. A well lit room with gnomish lamps illuminated the hidden chamber. It was his real office. The only thing in the room that moved was a little green creature wearing dark leathers.

Reznik was a rarity. A completely trustworthy goblin. Most goblins would sell out their employers for more gold, but Reznik was not most goblins. Shaw's second in command was dependable and completely loyal to SI:7. Of course, his salary was outrageous, but that was a small price to pay.

He looked at shaw and nodded. After a few moments, he began climbing up the ladder. Shaw turned to open another hidden door, hidden behind a bookcase. It was a bit of a cliché, but like there was good reason for it to be one. Book cases were heavy, and could store books alongside being hard to budge.

The tunnel behind the door was also lit with gnomish lighting devices. They were far superior to torches in every respect except cost. After a few minutes of walking in the snakelike tunnels, Shaw felt the tunnel beginning to climb. He was not too far off. Another minute of walking, and suddenly he felt a solid wall.

He knelt down and pushed a brick. For his efforts, he was rewarded with the wall beginning to slide with a dull grinding sound. He stood up and blinked. Where there had been solid wall, an arch opened up, with sunlight illuminating the chambers beyond. In a few moments, he was inside the Stormwind Library. He knew where to go now.

The chamber behind the throne room was filled with generals and captains of Stormwind, but the man that caught Shaw's eyes the most was the August personage of King Varian himself. The man towered over everyone in the room, his scarred, rugged face and mess of hair demanding instant attention. The king and all his closest advisers pored over a large map of Azeroth, lined and dotted with pins.

Everyone turned to look at Shaw. The guards had not announced his presence. It always put them on edge. As the leader of SI:7 and an accomplished rogue, Shaw took great professional pride in becoming invisible when he wanted to. Varian just looked at him and smiled.

The Council of War went by quickly. Most of the reports were not good. The Alliance had been driven out of the Barrens completely and the horde had been poised to attack Northwatch. While the Keep was fortified, it would eventually fall. Then Theramore itself would be under attack.

To make matters worse, the Twilight cult was springing up everywhere. SI:7 had tracked down large numbers of the cultists amassing in the highlands east of Grim Batol. Fighting two wars at the same time was taking it's toll.

In the end, Varian decided to crush this threat. If The lands east of Grim Batol could be secured, the Alliance would have an edge over the Horde that would begin to swing the war in their favour. His generals and battlemasters agreed. It was decided that adventurers and champions of the alliance would lead the way while the the land was slowly fortified.

That brought them to General Garrick's expedition. After his message from Pyrewood that said that he had trouble with the mercenaries, no report had come from the expedition. He should have taken Silverpine and be pushing into Tirisfal by now. Even the Gilneans had not been able to be of much help.

Shaw cleared his throat. Every pair of eyes in the room turned to look at him. He took a deep breath and spoke.

"I am afraid, I have news, both grave and good on that front." Everyone tensed. Garrick had taken a substantial portion of Stormwind's men and supplies. There would be no way to lessen the blow.

"General Garrick, and half of our army were ambushed on the march to Tirisfal. My agent reported and I corroborated that half our our army was destroyed by the Forsaken before ever reaching Fenris Keep. They seem to have been led by Sylvanas Windrunner herself, as evidenced by a number of Val'kyr that have The remained retreated back to the supply depot that General Garrick had constructed at Pyrewood."

To their credit, the generals took this news admirably. There was no crying or swearing of oaths as there had been when word of Arthas' betrayal had reached their ears all those years ago. This was a game with many pieces, and the alliance could lose some to the horde. The airship project was proceeding extremely well. Soon enough, the alliance would have air superiority with which to rain down fire and brimstone on the Horde.

He continued, " Now for the good news. The survivors from the ambush managed to retreat back to Pyrewood. On the next day, the forsaken army, stripped of their heavy siege weapons and plague attempted to attack and destroy the remnants. After a hard fought battle, the Forsaken army was utterly crushed."

If there was silence during the previous news, a storm of murmurs assailed Shaw from every direction now. What had happened? Had the Light struck the dead down? Had the Stormpike clan trapped and destroyed the Forsaken? Who had led the men of the Alliance against the dread Dark Lady of the Forsaken?

Varian Wrynn held up a hand, and like a wave breaking against a rock, the murmurs subsided. "Continue." He said, speaking for the first time since Shaw had started his latest report.

"It would seem that the foreign mercenary commander took charge of the remnants and carefully baited the Forsaken to let loose with their army. They destroyed the Forsaken piecemeal by leaving several gaps in their defensive line and when the Val'kyr attempted to raise all the dead once more, One of the Mercenaries, an extremely powerful mage destroyed their leader. At this point, with no way to replenish her forces, The Banshe Queen and her surviving members of the Death Guard and Dark Rangers retreated. The last my agent reported, the Gileans were chasing after them. By now she will be back in Tirisfal and the Undercity."

The murmuring resumed in full force. What kind of madman had the mercenary leader been? Who left gaps in their defences and what sort of mage could destroy some of the Lich King's most powerful servants? These were all questions that Shaw would have to find out. There was only one more thing about this affair to report.

Varian held up his hand, causing the noise to die down again. "This mercenary commander. Anything else your agent told you about him?"

"Yes, your highness. After the battle, he wanted to burn the corpses of all the slain for fear of the Val'kyr resurrecting them. My agent was able to forestall that order, and instead asked the Gilneans to bury them somewhere under the eaves of Shadowfang Keep now that Arugal has been driven out."

The King was thoughtful for a moment. "This foreigner seems to be a sacrilegious, if practical personage. Does he fight for us still?"

"As of when this report was written? Yes, Your Majesty."

The generals continued to talk among themselves, but the King was silent. Shaw did not try to understand why. Ever since Varian had returned from captivity among the Orcs, his hatred of the horde had grown. It was ironic that Lady Proudmoore's attempts to secure lasting peace between the Alliance and the Horde had inadvertently laid down the foundations of the war they were currently fighting. Now, he had sent hundreds of men to their deaths, on a quest to reclaim Lordaeron. Varian Wrynn would have to deal with that on his own accord.

After an hour of discussion, a new plan to bring the war to the Forsaken was formed. At it's core lay the band of strange foreign mercenaries. What was strange about it was that the orders that were to be received by the Mercenary Commander was signed by none other than Varian Wrynn himself. Generally, it was done by the superior officer.

It could only mean that from now on, Varian Wrynn would be directly commanding the mercenaries. He was the king, and it was his right to do what he wished with his forces. Including bringing back a long lost Kingdom under the fold of the Alliance with nothing but a small but effective army of Mercenaries.

Agent Melrick would have to work overtime, Shaw thought, as he returned back to his office in the same way he went out.

* * *

 _ **Sorry for the delay guys. I went on a bender on my birthday and forgot to upload it.**_

 _ **Syr, you are going to see some of that pretty soon.**_

 _ **Dios, Tirion was doing nothing of the sort since he just sat in Hearthglen while the forsaken Blighted the healing Western Plaguelands right in front of his eyes.**_

 _ **Machicha, thank you for the kind words.**_

 _ **Guest, I will keep that in mind next time.**_

 _ **CaptnDetergent, the ambush had half of the Alliance army with some of their best soldiers destroyed. If Caledra had not organized resupply for the battered forces they would easily have been crushed by the undead.**_

 _ **DasPeas, Yes the game certainly is beautiful, and it's modding potential increases week by week.**_


	17. Chapter 17

**Hard Decisions**

* * *

Erich sat hunched over his company ledger with a quill in hand, pouring over the records of the Von Peiper Regiment. Luigi and Littorio sat opposite to him, each waiting their turn. Reflexively, his eyes turned to the window to see the soft shafts of sunlight illuminating the room. In the morose atmosphere, Erich realised that he suddenly had the time to see the small motes of dust move about randomly in the air even as they fell down to the wooden floor. Outside it was sunny and warm. Even as the days grew shorter and the air grew colder, a day like this was to be treasured.

Once, when Erich had not been old enough to grow hair on his face, he loved to go to the Pfeildorf market. Nestled at a crossroads between Nuln, Averland, Stirland and the Mountains and passes of the Vaults, Pfeildorf was always a prosperous town. It had been rebuilt since the devastation it had suffered centuries ago, but never to it's former glory. Once Pfeildorf was a city that rivalled Wissenburg, and would have been reckoned to be a part of the great cities of the Empire. Now, it was mainly known for its market. When Erich had seen the wider world, Pfeildorf's impression upon him had receded to a provincial town, not quite a backwater, but quaint and distant enough that it's name was only largely remembered by tax collectors who went to the market to take the Countesses' due.

To the young boy, every moment spent in the Pfeildorf had been a treasure. In contrast to the Von Peiper Mansion, the market seemed crowded, stuffy and full of life. The streets would be full of the citizens of Pfeildorf, where the richest burgher would have to rub shoulders with poorer and threadbare men and women, and little boys who were deft enough to cut off purse strings and make away with full purses. Hawkers would shout and try to drown out each other in proclaiming their wares. Dwarf trinkets from the vaults, crops from the end of the harvest season, books from the printing presses of Nuln, and of course religious trinkets from Tilea, Averland and Stirland would be present everywhere, on different stalls.

The Burgomeister's council was smart enough to keep most of the guards around these religious trinkets. A wrong boast here and there could lead to a riot. Of course, young Erich had been too young to understand them. Between the raw wool and the guards, the place would smell particularly rural on the days wool traders were present in large numbers. Erich avoided them. Sheep and wool were not to his interest.. While toy sellers would try to interest him in their gaudy wooden figurines, his new objects of affectation were books of warfare. He had started to read the books from his father's study when it had been too cold outside to play. His father did not mind him reading books, but always tried to make him read in the cold. He perhaps hoped that the young boy would either get too cold to read the books for long, or begin to tolerate the cold more. It was part of his ideas to make his son hardy. After exhausting most of the books in his library, Erich had impressed his father with the vocabulary he was developing. As a result, his allowance was increased and he was allowed to visit the market to buy more books. A boy of Erich's age, he had already fallen in love with the cheaper books published in bulk by the Altdorf and Nuln presses.

In contrast with Bretonnia, the empire was full of people that could read. The Elector Counts south of the Reik took great pride in the ability of the burghers and even peasants to read. They would constantly point it out to visiting dignitaries from Bretonnia who recoiled in horror at the fact that mere peasants could read signs and notices. Of course Writing was expensive, with paper and ink costing too much, but printing books was cheap. As a result, it became the sign of good breeding to be able to write in a clear and legible manner. Scribes were sought by richer nobles to write down their family trees and accomplishments in beautifully bound manuscripts that would never be read. Countess Emanuelle, never to be outdone by anyone lesser now employed a hundred scribes to write down her daily life, to compete with the dozen or so scribes in the Imperial Palace at Altdorf who mostly wrote treaties with the nations and peoples, the Empire traded with.

He had been patiently waiting for the second volume of _My travels with Gotrek_ to come out during those days. The first book had fired his imagination, and Erich could not wait for more. The young boy sincerely believed that what Felix Jaeger had written was true. Dashing heroes who destroyed the foes of the empire no matter where they lurked. He had even gone so far as to spend all his allowance on a beautiful map of the empire where he was busy tracing the travels of the wandering Dwarf Slayer and his Reiklander Chronicler. Despite his reedy physique, Erich had hoped that he would go on an adventure like them. Maybe he would wield a magical sword, have days of high adventure with a trusty dwarf companion and romance beautiful maidens from all across the Empire and beyond.

After so many years he remembered those fancies and dreams, sitting in a strange building, in a strange town, in a strange land. The next volume of the series was probably being written even now. Erich had stopped reading after the story where they met the Elven Archmage Teclis. It was preposterous. Teclis had last been seen by the Empire during the time of Magnus the Pious. It felt awfully contrived that a dwarf that had already slain a Greater Demon of Chaos was now saving the world side by side with a legendary elf from the past centuries. No doubt, Felix Jaeger, if he was even a real person was probably a shrivelled up scribe in the Imperial Library who was making a fortune on the side from the entertaining if implausible thrillers he wrote. Erich's father would doubtless consider Herr Jaeger a success. A scribe's job was to make money by writing. A Knight's job was to make money by fighting. The countess' beauty had no doubt faded by now, and Karl Franz now had grey hairs upon his head. The only thing that remained constant was doubtless his father's disappointment in Erich.

He could hear the man's face looking peering at him from the ceiling of the town hall, so very like his own.

 _Foolish and weak. Where is your trusty dwarf companion? You are surrounded by murderous scum that suit you. No dwarf would think of associating with you. They are honourable folk_

 _Where are the maidens you wanted to romance? I only see man faced whores around you. The elves around rightfully think of you as a worm._

 _Where is your or rather_ MY _enchanted weapon. You left it in Bretonnia to be taken away by some Norscan barbarian or peasant to save the worthless hide of a bigger failure than yourself._

He shook himself awake from those thoughts. There was no point poisoning his mind with memories that only left bitterness in their wake. The task in front of him was grim enough. He was tallying the Butcher's Bill.

First Sergeant Luigi went first. Unlike his normally smiling exterior that clung about him like a shadow, today his face was dour. He had a piece of parchment which was written in a handwriting that would send the mildest mannered tutor into a rage. At a nod from Erich, he began.

"Alejandro of Tobaro."

Erich leafed through his book to find the name and struck it out. The mercenary's career had just ended. Erich wrote down the place of his death. Proper logistics was the most boring, and consequently the most important part of running a force of mercenaries. The poor soul's final epitaph was, _Right flank, battle of Pyrewood._

Luigi continued.

"Alexandros of Myrmidens"

A man from the border princes.

"Bautista from Magritta."

An Estalian. Despite the bad blood between Tileans and Estalians, the man had evidently served for long enough for Erich to feel a twinge of sadness. He was from Valdos' time, fighting when Erich was being bullied by his father for failing to hold up a knight's broadsword.

The sun kept climbing higher as Luigi rattled off names. Most Company commanders would leave this task to an underling, but Erich had always felt responsible for the ultimate termination of his men's services. He was their Captain. In some ways, he ordered them to their deaths.

Once, many years ago, Erich would have drowned in sorrow. By now, repetition had dulled the feeling into a twinge of queasiness. As long as a single modicum of sorrow over the loss of his boys' lives remained, Erich hoped that he could go back to a time when he was not a soldier. Being one, and a mercenary at that was always an involved professional choice. The young boy would have been excited at the chance of being a Dog of War. The veteran commander that he was now just wanted it to end.

When the name Xavier came up, something clicked in Erich's mind. The names had been sequential. Luigi had written down the names in an alphabetical order so that both his, and Erich's workload would be lessened. For a moment, Erich marveled at the pretty son of a whore. Much like Erich, he had joined a mercenary company to escape from problems at home. Only in Luigi's case, it was the overzealous nature of Solkanite priests. They would probably burn him at the stake due to the dubious circumstances of his birth.

Such was life in the old world.

Luigi had now finished and left the paper on the table. His hands were busy filling up a glass of wine. Reciting the names of the deceased was thirsty work.

Erich took the opportunity to study the list of names. His guess proved correct. Luigi had written the names in an alphabetical order, even though Erich found it hard to read the 'a's from the the 'o's. Despite his humble background, Luigi had the brains needed to run his own independent regiment. Not that Erich wanted him to. A few years more of amassing a fortune, and Erich would buy a plot of land, and leave his men in the hands of his swiftly improving Protege.

Now it was littorio's turn. Not surprisingly, the man had fallen asleep waiting for Luigi to finish. Erich sighed. Littorio was getting long in the tooth. The man had been part of the company even before Valdos had risen to the rank of Captain. Most people in his position were either dead or retired. The old man still stubbornly soldiered on. Erich could not understand why.

In time, he would ask Littorio once. Right now, the man needed to be awake. Erich nodded, and Luigi shook Littorio. The older man woke up with a start and stared at everything for a moment with a mixture of surprise and awe on his face before muttering to himself.

"Littorio, your list of casualties please." Erich fought to keep his voice low. Part of him wanted to shout at the old man, to see if he could jump in fright. The more logical part of his mind knew that it would serve no purpose.

Littorio looked at his list and then simply said, "None."

Erich blinked. Almost entirely by reflex, his eyes went looking for a person with the name "None."

Littorio found his voice and managed to say, "No casualties, Capitan."

Erich grunted. While not entirely unexpected, it was a pleasant surprise. The Forsaken, for all their terrifying appearance often did not have working muscles on their hands. It made shooting arrows difficult. Of course, Littorio could just have told him that.

"Then what did you bring in your report?" The paper was full of scrawlings nonetheless.

"Oh, that Signor? Its only a record of the bolts we shot during the battle. I went ahead and tallied them and have the report here."

Erich smacked his head with his hand. Of course Littorio had gone ahead and counted out the bolts his men had used during the battle. While he did not underestimate the importance of having a full stocked quiver, Erich's focus right now was on keeping his men alive. Besides, from what he had seen of the supply stockpile in Pyrewood, it had all the bolts they would ever need for a hundred battles.

"Thank you for your report Littorio. Given your thoroughness, I am sure I am not going to have to double check the bolts lying around. Now, do either of you have any questions?" Erich had tallied his butcher's bill and needed time to think. Usually, he concluded his meetings with his sergeants by asking them if they had any questions. As it turned out, Luigi did have one.

"Eh, Capitan, what are we going to do with the bodies."

"Round up some of your boys cut some of those trees to the south. The dwarfs are already hard at work there gathering lumber to fortify the village." Luigi's expression fell a little. He must have wanted to bury his men.

Erich softened his tone and continued. "Listen, Luigi. If we could bury our boys, we would. You saw that the foe we fight raises the dead. I would not have the souls of comrades torn from morr's realm to be condemned to an eternity of torment."

That convinced Luigi, or at least managed to shut the man up. He simply nodded and got up. Littorio made to follow as well.

They were at the door when Erich spoke. "Death is a constant companion to us more so than other men. In the end, all we have to look after each other is ourselves. I have not arrived at this course of action lightly. We are far away from home fighting for strangers in a strange war. It falls to us to make sure our fallen friends and brothers remain at rest. I would expect you to do the same to me if I had fallen there yesterday."They left. Priest of Morr and Sigmar would have agreed to Erich's decision. But for others it only seemed that Erich was desecrating the corpses of his men

Erich looked at the window. Despite the warmth of the sun, Erich did not wish to go outside any more. He had a funeral to prepare for.

* * *

Peggy Cogwhistle was suddenly fighting the job of a diplomat rather stressful. Due to the stature she had brought with Lady Proudmoore's signet ring, she had been given chambers inside the Keep itself. In contrast to her home in Gnomeregan and the more homelier inns and taverns she had been living in during her new life as an adventurers, the highly furnished quarters allotted to her seemed garish. The bearskin rug's head at the foot of the bed was larger than her while the bed was so soft that she almost sank in it.

Initially Peggy had thought that she would be there for a day or two, until the actual Envoy from Theramore returned, but just this morning, she had been rather rudely informed that the Diplomat (and the ship he had been travelling on) had been captured or sunk by the Horde off the coast of Theramore. Until someone else was appointed to the position and managed to reach Stormwind, she would have to continue in her duties as a diplomat from Theramore.

In times of peace, this might have been a great way to enjoy a life of ease, but a war was raging on. From dawn till sunset, Peggy had to be present in the War Council or the King's Court. Lady Proudmoore had been kind enough to teach her a simple spell of scrying so that she could communicate with Peggy. However, the ruler of Theramore wanted to be informed of every decision the High King made regarding the Alliance's war efforts, while Peggy would relay the news of the situation on Central and Southern Kalimdor to the War council.

The battlemasters of the Alliance were demanding individuals, and Peggy was cross examined on every statement she would make. How bad was the situation in the Barrens? Had the horde moved in from the western passes? What had happened to the Ogres in Dustwallow marsh. Were the few remaining Black Dragons from the Wyrmbogs wreaking havoc on the Supply lines of Theramore? Did Lady Proudmoore require more troops to defend her domain? It was Peggy's job to either answer those questions, or put them in front of Lady Proudmoore. It was a thoroughly unpleasant task that Peggy detested doing but was also afraid. Most of the news on both ends was not good.

Ever since the Alliance had been dragged into the war with the Horde, a series of crushing defeats had been inflicted on the Alliance. Gilneas was largely ruined from the Cataclysm and parts large parts of it's population had been stricken by an ancient Night Elven Curse. Transformed into the bestial and ravenous worgen, most of their number had been taken in by the Night Elves who helped keep them sane. This curse had also transformed them into vicious fighters, who took out their anger and hatred on the Horde that had driven them from their homeland. This was helpful, if not entirely welcome. There was no way to know if the curse could even be lifted, or if the Gilneans were fighting a battle that was not winnable in the end.

The Alliance had crushed the main offensive into Ashenvale forest, with Varian Wrynn playing a decisive part in the battle. He had been blessed by the Ancient god of the Night Elves, Goldrinn, and was his champion. Despite this divine aid, the rest of the war progressed even more slowly.

The alliance fleet building a beachhead in the Highlands east of Grim Batol was constantly harassed by the Naga. The Night elves had been forced to split their forces. The Twilight's Hammer Clan had resurfaced. Once a member of the Orc Horde that had ravaged the Eastern Kingdom during the second war, it now consisted of mad individuals from every corner of the world. They heralded Deathwing's coming, and everywhere the dragon went, the powerful and venerable would fall under the Twilight Hammer's spell.

The ancient Druid Fandral Staghelm, driven mad by the loss of his son was leading an assault with the aim to burn down the World Tree, Nordrassil. While the Ancient gods had returned to defend the World Tree, the Night elves now were engaged in a bitter fight to prevent the World Tree and the Well of Eternity from being destroyed. SI:7 had confirmed that the rot had even reached Stormwind. Prince Anduin had been attacked by cultists inside the city but had been saved by guardians who were some of the Alliance's greatest Champions and heroes. In their investigation into the affair, SI:7 had found that Archbishop Benedictus – who had disappeared after Deathwing's attack on Stormwind, had been seduced by the Twilight's Cult.

This latest piece of news was not to leave the War Council. The Archbishop had long been a Paragon of the Light, inspiring the men and women of Stormwind to great actions. Bolvar Fordragon had sought his blessings when he went on his ill fated crusade to bring down the Lich King to justice. The noble paladin had been betrayed by the Horde, and died in the attack on the Wrathgate. The man who he looked up to the most had betrayed his people and his faith to follow in the footsteps of a mad dragon who wanted to destroy the world.

The champions and heroes of the Alliance were making their way to Kalimdor in droves, to beat back the Firelord. Meanwhile the war was largely entering a lull. The Horde did not attempt to attack Ashenvale again, content with pillaging Azshara. The ancient lands of the Night Elves had survived the sundering and the Burning Legion twice, only to be carved into a gigantic symbol of the Horde as a way for the goblins to gain the favours of their new and brutal Warchief. Even now, a large new harbour had been built and the goblins manufactured ships and weapons of war with which to arm the Horde.

The victory at Ashenvale had only caused the horde to focus their attacks on the Southern part of the continent. Feralas and the lands surrounding it were held firmly by the sentinels and the Highborne from Dire Maul, which meant that the entire brunt of the Horde offensive now fell firmly on Theramore. The city was of immense strategic and symbolic importance to the Alliance. It was the largest port that the Alliance had on the Eastern part of Kalimdor and a key staging point for any major operation against the Horde. Yet, it was also the beating heart of the Alliance, both the old and the new. Made largely from the survivors of Quel'thalas and Lordaeron that had fled west with Jaina Proudmoore, it was also the place where the New alliance had been forged, when the Night Elves, impressed by the Young Archmage's courage and honourable conduct in the aftermath of the Third war had made the decision to join the Alliance.

The only good news had been from the North. The Deathknight Thassarian had taken advantage of the chaos in Lordaeron and invaded Andorhal. With only a small force of Alliance Regulars and Westfall Militia, he had managed to cause havoc in the Banshee Queen's lands. While he had eventually been driven away, the Alliance had secured a foothold into Lordaeron proper. Apart from Hammerfell, Everything South of Silverpine forest was firmly in the grasp of the Alliance. The gilneans, both infected and whole were looking forward to returning to their homes after the war was over. It was a small spark of hope in a sea of dire tidings.

The SI:7 agent had managed to send another report. The newly reformed Gilneas Brigade led by Lord Darius Crowley, a pardoned rebellious noble had been scouting the Silverpine woods in force. They had noticed that the Forsaken had abandoned the land and pulled back to the narrow path between Lake Lordamere and the Tirisfal Glades. Pyrewood village was rapidly being fortified by the Ironforge Brigade. The dwarfs excelled in the art of building, and a small expedition from the Stormpike clan would soon be arriving to help fortify the town. The numbers of the defenders however were limited, and the mercenaries were still expecting payment.

The meeting was adjourned for the day. Exhausted at the breadth of the news, Peggy walked back to her rooms. Normally she would have been happy at the fact that the guards saluted her and opened doors for her, but the responsibilities given to her only meant the trapping that came with her position gave a feeling of Claustrophobia. She wanted to shut out the immensity of the world and the wars that waged in it with a quiet room by the fire.

Peggy managed to open a small scrying portal on her third attempt. Usually she was quite good at these sort of spells but the weight of the duty thrust upon her meant that she was beginning to make mistakes for the simplest things. Pleased with the vision before her eyes, she threw herself on the bed and resisted the urge to fall asleep. Lady Proudmoore would want her to remain focused while she delivered the news and deliberations of the War Council.

A richly decorated study filled with books appeared in the air in front of her. Peggy had been to that place once before. The study of Jaina Proudmoore was beautiful in it's simplicity. Wooden floors, kept constantly clean by enchanted brooms moved about attacking what unfortunate speck of dust remained on the floors. The tables were elegantly carved and filled with potions and magical instruments that Peggy was not familiar with. Right now, only a single figure was in sight.

Kinndy Sparkshine was half of Peggy's age, and thrice as talented. She was an apprentice to Jaina and could easily learn the concept behind the most complicated arcane spells. What irked Peggy the most was the fact that Kinndy was extremely cheerful. The child had lived in Dalaran for her entire life and had access to the best mages and teachers her entire life. Now she was an apprentice to one of the most powerful mages on Azeroth, and a ruler who was constantly besieged. Kinndy was currently going through some of her notes when she looked back and yelped in surprise. Peggy couldn't help but smile inwardly.

"Oh hi there Peggy." Kinndy said, her voice perky.

"Hello Miss Sparkshine. Is your Mistress there? I have come to make my report." Speaking too much to the younger gnome made Peggy's head ache.

Thankfully for her, the apprentice was not in a mood to chat. She just nodded and ran down the spiral staircase. Seeing her form recede, Peggy sighed. She should not feel angry at the gnome. When She was younger, Peggy was sure she had been a nuisance to her teachers. Peggy only seemed so perky in comparison to the humans around her. Humans were never so curious as gnomes, and seemed to dull as partners in conversations. She had managed to befriend a few humans, like her friend Dana, the older mage who was on her way to Southshore and looked up to others, but as a species, humans were dreadfully boring.

Lady Proudmoore was not far behind. As she walked up the stairs, Peggy took her face in. She seemed weary. The cares of ruling a nation and part of the government of another was not an easy task, and Jaina Proudmoore had a war to win as well. From what Peggy had heard, all the Archmage wanted to do was study. Now here she was, awaiting a report from a gnomish adventurer who was going to report to her about a war that engulfed the world.

Peggy made her report. In contrast to the Command staff of Varian Wrynn, Jaina Proudmoore was a kind person to report to. She rarely interrupted and mostly let Peggy finish. After nearly an hour, Peggy ceased speaking. During this time, she had not seen Jaina move from her table. Her bright blue eyes, shimmering with a hint of the awesome Arcane power she wielded studied Peggy. A hint of concern was extant on her beautiful features.

After a minute of allowing Peggy to compose herself, Lady Proudmoore spoke. "I hope I am not asking too much of you."

Peggy wanted to scream yes, but something in the expression on the Archmage's face made her shake her head. "I am fine," she said, and continued, "besides, living in Stormwind Keep beats following an army around in Lordaeron trying to fight the Undead."

Lady Proudmoore smiled at that statement. It was a sad and wistful smile. She had remembered something from her past. Peggy did not wish to intrude upon her. Instead she was content with waiting for Jaina to continue the conversation.

Peggy did not have wait long. After a moment, those eyes focused on her once again.

"So what do you think of this war." She gestured with her hand.

"Not going so well." Peggy had been a teenager when the Horde had besieged Ironforge during the second war. It had seemed then that the march of the Orcs could not be stopped. Stormwind had fallen and soon the rest of the Seven Kingdoms would fall as well.

"Yes, and all the while the world around us crumbles and the elements cry out in disarray." Jaina said. Her tone brooked no argument. Peggy simply nodded her assent while stifling a yawn.

"How are my friends?" The last she knew, apart from Dana, the rest were busy fighting in Dustwallow marsh.

"They moved in with forces to clear the ogres out of Dustwallow. I will let you know as soon as they return."

"What do you want me to tell the War Council My Lady?"

For the next half an hour, Lady Proudmoore appraised her accidental diplomat of how Theramore was performing in the war. It seemed that the fighting was dying down around the southern barrens. The alliance forces had managed to fall back and regroup inside Dustwallow marsh and were retreating to Theramore. Lady Proudmoore requested that she be given command of the troops so that she could help bolster her defenses. Northwatch was still invested and the horde bombardment had begun to die down. All she could do was wait.

At the end Lady Proudmoore had some good news. A replacement for Peggy had been found. She was to be present at the War council tomorrow. Once more Jaina thanked Peggy for her service. That was all.

Peggy nodded and curtsied. A moment later, the scrying spell ended, drained of magic. Peggy did not notice. She was already drifting off into sleep.

* * *

Serra sat in her room. The elements would dance to her bidding if she so desired. In front of her floated the remains of her Circlet. The spell had reached it's cresendo, soon she would have her answers from the Father of the Elves.

This morning, her spirit left her body and she explored the continent at ease. She willed her spirit form northwards towards the fount of power she had felt before the battle. This close, she spied a city that was remarkably similar to the ones built by the Asur during their age of colonisation. Much like Ulthuan, large parts of the city were in ruins, but the font of power just beyond was guarded by elven warriors. The elves of Azeroth had longer ears than the Asur but were otherwise similar. Magic permeated every part of their homeland, and Serra could sense their spirits. Yet the elves were not the reason she was there.

She beheld the holy power of a fountain. It might have been magical in nature once, but the mark of the gods had been felt here. A harmonious mix of both the divine and the arcane permeated this place and brought joy to her spirit. All her doubts vanished, and now Serra knew what she had to do.

Even as her spirit returned to her body, Serra felt the shadowy voices return to assail her mind. Initially she gave them little heed. They thought her easily seduced by their promises of power. The history of the Asur had taught them all that they needed to know about the promises of power. Aenerion had been driven mad by the promise of power given to him by Khaine, and the High Elves in their arrogance had lost much of their once sprawling empire. The Druchii were the living example of what happened if elves did not strive for balance.

In response to her steadfastness, the voices changed their tactics. They now said that they would soon be free of their prisons, and would enjoy tormenting her spirit for eternity once they were free. This world was theirs, and it's bones heard their calls. In time they would destroy her body and torture her spirit. She was far from home, and this world was unforgiving. If she could, Serra would have laughed at that statement. The Asur led by Aenerion had faced down the might of Chaos Undivided and flourished in it's aftermath. Even now, in their twilight, they were the guardians and stewards of the world. The voices would whisper from now until the end of time, and Serra would not pay them any heed. As her spirit approached her body, she mockingly thanked them for their company for making the trip interesting and returned to her mortal coil.

That had been an hour ago. Now, she was busy making runes for a scrying spell that she would be casting. In the old World or on Ulthuan. A spell like this would be too risky. Serra knew what she had to do. Her training in the White Tower of Saphery had taught her well. Here the aether was tame enough to attempt to cast the spell she needed. All she required was a focus.

The creatures might feel everything upon this world, but Serra was not of this world. The creatures could not access her mind, and presumably those of Erich's Mercenaries. However, they had said that they were masters of this world's bones. It meant that her focus would need to be out of this world as well.

Her crown was forged of Star Metal. It would do exceedingly well. She had slowly unravelled it's clasps with magic and straightened it to form a conduit. Now it floated in the air above her.

Even as the sun turned, her invocation reached a cresendo. Her spirit left it's body and floated in the void between worlds. From far away, she heard the cruel laughter of thirsting gods. It was most disquieting. After an indeterminate amount of time, she found what she was looking for.

Looking was not the most appropriate word. It was a sensation. Whenever an Elf was near the flames of Asuryan or those of his Phoenixes, a form of bliss permeated their entire presence. Magically attuned to a level unthinkable by the lesser races of the world, The Elves of Ulthuan knew what the true spark of divinity was. And Serra's spirit was suffused with it's presence.

Then Asuryan spoke. Speech would have been too crude for the god of the elves. It thought in a span that was beyond the ken of even the oldest elves. Millenia were a blink of an eye to the Creator -God, and despite her proud upbringing, Serra felt an overwhelming desire to prostate herself before the awesome might of the Creator.

She never recalled what she asked. Only a feeling of dread as Asuryan permeated every corner of her mind. Then he retreated, and Serra knew the answers would be waiting for her when she returned.

Serra opened her eyes. For a moment she wondered if she had imagined the whole thing. After all, it was hard to tell what really happened in a trance. Without a body to provide feedback, it was notoriously difficult to tell what had happened.

Then she saw it. Her conduit was wreathed in the sacred flame of Asuryan. While it had been clear when she had used it for a conduit, it was now covered with runes. Almost unthinkingly she reached with her hand to touch it.

The searing fire burned her for an instant. Every instinct in her body and mind told her to let go of the rod. But she held on. She had braved storm and the spirit realm to meet her maker, and she would have her answer from Him, even if it consumed ever fibre of her being. Instead of dropping her crown, she held it with both hands.

And then, the flames vanished.

The legend of Aenerion stated that he had walked into the flames of Asuryan seeking an audience with the Creator-God. He had emerged as a mighty hero who led the elves to victory after victory against an army that was all but unstoppable. The Phoenix Kings were said to be blessed by Asuryan, and mages could feel the touch of the god upon them.

Serra did not need to test that a similar strength burned within her now. Asuryan had tested her, and she had not been found wanting. An echo of The God's power had been given to her, and she knew what she must do to find the answers she sought.

Far to the north over a cold and harsh sea was a place called Northrend. In the northernmost part of this desolate and cold land, was a relic from a time when the Old Ones walked this world. Serra would find the answers she needed there. Those that had fallen to the shadow would try to stop here, but in Azeroth, just like the old world, there were people who would fight against it.

That was not her concern. The relic of the Old Ones was. It had a single name, that was now burned into Serra's memory.

Ulduar.

* * *

 ** _Machcia, Yes I have actually. You will see them eventually._**

 ** _Dios, No, the loss of manpower is something Erich will have to deal with. You will see that soon._**

 ** _medchtsia, who knows? Maybe Sven falls in love with a gilnean who can't control herself._**


	18. Chapter 18

**Faith and Funerary rites**

* * *

Once upon a time, Aspirant-Brother Phillip had a simple boy with simple dreams. The son of a well-to-do merchant in Altdorf, the young man had lived an ordinary life. He got into fights with other boys and girls his age, played truant and was thrashed by his parents if he misbehaved. If he had not been given away to the church as a way to clear his father's reputation in selling weirdroot, he would have grown into the life of a merchant, managing a stall in the Altdorf Marketplace.

Instead, his upbringing at the hand of the Church of Sigmar had ignited the embers of faith in his heart. Phillip had taken to the Tenets of the Cult of Sigmar, like a dwarf takes to grudges. While most of his fellow lay-brothers would roll their eyes at doing the menial tasks in the Cathedral, Phillip had found great pride in it. His superiors would say that the stones of their cells shone when Lay-Brother Phillip polished them. The strictures of Sigmar considered pride to be a sin that would only invite the dark powers into the hearts of the cowardly. It was the duty of the Cult of Sigmar to lead mankind away from the darkness of false gods and into the light. He could still recite the scriptures that extolled Sigmar's teachings as if the Deus Sigmar was open on his lap. Still, the joy of doing each task better than his peers only made the young boy more proud. After all, he was still a youth given to the fancies of his age.

Life as a Lay-brother had been tedious, but Phillip had put the tedium to good use. Once a shy boy, he had taken to copying the mannerisms of the priests who would give the daily sermon in the Cathedral. To the young boy, the priests who spoke with the power of Almighty Sigmar were no less heroes than dashing knights and brave emperors. His teachers had discovered him trying his best to declaim. They had taken him under their wing, and like everything else in the monastic life, Lay-Brother Phillip had excelled at it. When his voice had broken, his high pitched voice became a low timbre, and along with the art of speechcraft, his tutors declared him fit to eventually be a full brother one day.

By the time Phillip had begun to grow taller at the age of thirteen, his superiors had already marked him for greater things than scrubbing pots and cleaning floors. Every day, before the sun rose, Lay-brother Phillip would lift weights and run inside the sparring chambers for hours, building his body to be a living temple of Sigmar. His rations were increased, and Phillip ate far better than he had ever eaten at home. The food was always simply prepared, he remembered, but after a hard day's work felt nourishing all filling. Soon enough, he began to put on muscles. Then his real training began.

A warhammer was a difficult weapon to wield and had required stringent practice over a long period of time. It was not a balanced weapon to use, and to put power into his swing, Phillip had to build up enough momentum. His instincts told him to swing with the weight of the hammer, for it would be easier. His teachers told him to swing away from the hammer because it kept his stance guarded. Day in and day out he trained and mastered the use of the warhammer, until he was declared ready.

On a day of the Sabbath, Lay-brother Phillip knelt before the great statue of Sigmar, and took his oaths. When dawn broke over the Cathedral the next morning, Lay-brother Phillip no longer existed. Aspirant-Brother Phillip stood in front of the Statue of Sigmar, and strode forth in the name of his god, proudly dressed in his sacred vestments and with a warhammer at his side. Soon he would be put to the test, and he would become a Warrior Priest of Sigmar, proudly bearing the light of faith in the distant corners of the empire.

Yet that was never to be, for when the time came, Phillip had quailed under the stern gaze of his brothers and his God. An Aspirant-Brother was to be the bulwark of faith against the horrors of chaos and the twisted monsters that preyed upon humanity. Phillip had sworn that he would never stop fighting against the foes of Mankind. Yet, the charge of the Beastmen had unnerved him. His faith seemed to have abandoned him when he needed it the most – facing a charging army of hellspawned horrors that wanted to feast on his marrow and desecrate what remained of him. The hollowness of his pride had struck him, and his calls to Sigmar had gone unanswered. The God of the Empire did not help those, who could not help themselves.

Luthor Huss' furious glare sizing him down still woke Phillip up after all these years. Those eyes, so full of purity and zeal regarding him with disgust that still left a bitter taste in his mouth. Phillip knew then that if he stayed there, he would be executed after the battle. His faith had been found wanting by a Paragon of Sigmar, and that would only lead to heresy if left unchecked.

Perhaps if he had been a bolder man, Phillip would have taken his punishment. As it was, he ran like the coward he was deep down inside. He had cast down his hammer and his sacred vestments, and ran away even as the battle raged on. It was there that he had found a way out.

The Sollander had seen the entire thing, and had beckoned him over. Two days ago, Aspirant-Brother Phillip would have strangled that man. A noble of the empire worshipping a strange foreign goddess was heretical according to the Church, and heresy needed to be swiftly punished. At the same time, Phillip was also in the same boat. His faith in Sigmar had faltered, and the God's grace had forsaken him, exposing him in the front of his peers. To them, he might as well be a mutated spawn of Chaos itself. Trusting his life to the Heathen's mercy, Brother Phillip had prayed for Sigmar's mercy for the last time as a member of his Church.

Hidden inside the mercenaries' Baggage Train, Phillip left the empire that he had sworn to protect in disgrace. He had been utterly humbled in the eyes the church.

Even now, after so many years, Phillip kept the trappings of his faith with him. The sigmarite medallion still hung about his neck. He kept his head and beard shaved at all times, as part of his habits at the Cathedral Monastery, and he still prayed to Sigmar. In a way, it was ironic. At the heart of the Empire, his prayers were full of pride. Now, stripped of his former life, Phillip had learned the meaning of humility. For a time, he had considered suicide, but Erich Von Peiper had brought him back from the brink.

" _I saved your life at Wissenburg, Brother Phillip. I would not see it wasted when you try to jump into the canal"_ His voice had a tone of command in it that reminded Phillip of a master orator.

" _I promised that I would give my life for my faith, and it seems that Sigmar had deemed it so. I have shamed him, and he has turned away from me. I must make amends."_ Phillip's voice had broken then. The life that he had wanted to live had been taken away by his own cowardice.

" _Funny thing isn't it? You lose your faith, and you want to die. The question you should be asking yourself Brother Phillip, is that whether your faith wants to be found."_ It had been an example of cheap sophistry, but that had been enough. The self destructive urge had passed, and instead of Drowning himself in the canals of Miragliano, Phillip had taken to the life of a mercenary.

For all his lack of faith, Phillip had learned how to swing a warhammer well. This, along with the compassion Erich had for all his men had led Phillip to finding a semblance of balance in his life. The life of a mercenary was far different from the life of a Lay-brother, but Phillip had adjusted.

Instead of whoring or drinking in excess, he gave his money away to the needy and the sick. Sigmar might have forsaken him, but Phillip still had faith in the god. Pride had been his downfall, and ever since that day when he nearly killed himself, Phillip strove to be humble in thought and deed.

One day, he hoped, that Sigmar would answer. All he had in the meantime was faith.

This day was a day to be faithful. He walked out from the eastern gate of the dreary village, glad for a moment to be away from the aura of rot that permeated the hovels even now. The dwarfs – ever stout allies of mankind – were busy fortifying the village. While stone would have been ideal to make a bastion, from what little Phillip could infer, wood was easier to work with. Palisades were already beginning to go up, and the village would be far more defensible now, than it had been in years.

Much to his amusement, Phillip saw halflings lending a hand in the construction, along with a few of the native soldiers. Halflings in the empire were largely good for nothing but cooking food and eating it. Still, they were a legitimate part of the empire and did not cause too many problems wherever they went. While the Cult of Sigmar exhorted it's believers to aid the dwarfs in their endeavours any way they could, halflings were to be kept distant. Their hunger for food and curiosity made them to be a nuisance. However, they were also legitimate electors of the empire so they had to be kept pacified.

The halflings here in this foreign land on the other hand were far more active, from what little Phillip saw them now. If he had been idling about he might have lent them a hand. His body was still strong from his training as a Warrior Priest, and backbreaking labour to help build something made him feel like he was helping his fellow man. However, he was here for another task.

Throughout the previous day, Luigi and Littorio had sent men out to gather logs of firewood. They said it was for the funeral. It did not take long for Phillip to understand that the bodies were going to be cremated instead of buried. Normally, the Cult of Morr frowned at this practice, but between a heap of ashes and having your soul trapped in it's shambling mortal coil with the help of sorcery, the former was always preferable to the latter. Phillip had been on the front lines.

He had been horrified to see the corpses rise again, shambling and moaning. The surprise had cost them all dear. Trained and hardened soldiers they all might be, none had expected the dead to rise again and attack what had been their comrades in life with stumbling arms and clumsy thrusts of the blade. Any reservation Phillip had against the strange humans decked in Plate had disappeared. Maybe Sigmar had brought him here so that he would find his courage.

And to find one's courage, one had to face their fears.

* * *

Erich stood on a rock, watching them all come in. His men were streaming out of the village, in groups of a dozen or a score since the past hour. It would not be long before what remained of the company assembled here. No one wore any armour or carried weapons. If anyone saw them now, they would look like a procession of commoners coming to attend a village funeral. Something about the entire scene that was playing out before Erich touched him deeply. After Bretonnia, the company had lost a lot of their men to foolish decisions, but all they had emerged all the stronger for it.

There was no reason for them to be there. Erich never believed in mandatory congregations. The life of a mercenary was hard enough without him enforcing punitive punishment like a rookie Empire officer. As long as his men would drill between campaigns and keep their swords and spears sharp, they were free to do anything in their spare time. It was a trick he had picked up from Voland. The Venator's cavalry was no less devastating on the field of battle than the Reiksguard, but off the field they were a bunch of drunken and dispossessed nobles. The only time Voland required discipline from his men off the field of battle was when they were drilling and jousting.

No, his men had come here to bid farewell to their friends and brothers-in-arms. Death was the constant companion of mercenaries everywhere. Making drunken jokes about dying was one thing, but carrying a friends' limp body away from the field was another. It was the the most profound reminder of the mortality that they had to endure. After today, the dead, who only a few days ago laughed and lived among them would only be memory.

Erich was not quite alone upon the rocky outcrop. Serra wanted to ignite the pyres as she felt it was due to her decision that the men were dead. He did not mind. Her magic had been instrumental in killing the women necromancers and defeating the undead army. Wizards in the empire had held the High Elves in the highest regard. Erich only knew that a few elves had founded the Imperial College of Magic at Altdorf and traded with the Empire regularly. After seeing what Caledra had done to the Necromancer at the sacked town and in the battlefield, he had gained a newfound appreciation for her. Elves were supposed to live for centuries, so it made sense that a race that focused on something to the point of perfection would make for terrifying mages on the battlefield. The fact that she wanted to cremate the soldiers meant that she was slowly settling in the role of a member of the company.

Caledra was the other person. She had seen dozens of men leave the village, and had come running to tell Erich about him. He had been brief with her. To his surprise, the long eared elf had remained elected to stay. She had lost friends to the undead before, and wanted to see how foreigners conducted their funeral. Right now, she was busy looking at Serra with a mixture of awe and surprise. Erich wondered why. Maybe he would ask them later. Right now, he hoped that the clouds overhead would not start to pour. He exhaled, and began to speak. Weather was beyond his power. Just like everything in life, he would try to do the best in a bad spot. He supposed that was as good an epitaph for him as any. Overhead, the clouds rumbled angrily, and thunder flashed.

"Boys, we are gathered here today to bid farewell to our friends and brothers-in-arms. We all knew these men enough to stand next to them in the line of battle, trusting our lives in their hands, as they did in ours." Erich exhaled. Maybe he should have written something. But then, a pre written speech would be too long and lack the impact of something that came from the heart.

He continued. "And now, they are dead. You might be thinking that we have failed them, but the truth is that we are at the end of the day, simple men. We are born, we live, we love, and we die. I come from the Empire, as no doubt many of you know. It is a land that is constantly besieged by threats both within and without." Erich now had his opening. He ploughed through straight ahead.

"In many ways, my people are similar to yours. We have our loves, our desires, and our failings. But we persevere together. Every time we are in a battle, against foes both mundane and the grotesque, we put our trust in the hands of the man next to us, knowing that he will look after us, just like we will look after him. On these foreign shores, we have held on to what has defined mankind for millennia. And now, we shall bid our friends farewell. While their bodies will be turned to ash, their deeds and their memories shall live on with us, as we shall live on in the songs and deeds of others that come after us."

"In my land, is is tradition to commemorate the slain as brave. I shall not do that. We do not proclaim ourselves as brave, for there is no need to. The blood we have spilled on a hundred battlefields is our writ of proof. They say, there is bravery in the charge against a foe that cannot be beaten. I say, there is bravery in standing shoulder to shoulder with comrades, while the world crumbles at our feet." A deep breath. Then Erich's eyes watered. He felt the embers of pride stir in his heart as he saw his boys standing with their heads held high. There was something mythical about the entire scene.

"Let the heroes have their tombs of marble and gilded statues. We have something more. Behold our Banner that flutters defiantly in the gale. The Heraldry of a land long gone, alive once more through our actions. As long as we stand together, we are mighty. And the Mighty honour the fallen and we bid them farewell."

It began to rain. Erich muttered a profanity. Getting the wood to light was on going to be impossible. He turned to look at the pyres. Something caught his attention. Serra was looking at him with a mixture of pity and determination. She made a motion to speak. Erich gave her his spot and stood beside Caledra.

"Gentlemen of Tilea, I am sorry that I have led to the deaths of your comrades." Her voice was now far louder than Erich had thought. Then he noticed that not a single drop of rain fell on her, and she shimmered in the gloom of the day. Elves were a strange folk. Their Witches doubly so.

"Allow me to ensure that the corpses of your comrades are not desecrated by dark magic."

Serra raised her hand, and Erich inhaled sharply as he realised what the witch was about to do.

Her staff glowed brightly for an instant, and Erich realised that he was in the presence of a power that was beyond magic. It was similar to the power he had seen Luthor Huss wield, or in the Acclesiarchim of Myrmidia. The very essence of the gods hovered around Serra. She turned to look at the pyres and Erich caught her eyes. There was something worshipful about the ways Serra's eyes glittered. They turned golden for a moment and then the natural bright blue of her eyes took their place.

The Pyres lit up instantly. In the heavy downpour, the pyres burned brightly like on a dry summer day. Everyone gasped at the power Serra had displayed. They had seen her decimate ranks of the undead and thought of her as a potent mage, but a person who took care to give dead soldiers a proper funeral was more than just an elven mage. She was now part of the company.

Someone began to sing a sad song about the parting of friends. In the downpour, it sounded weak and pitiful, as though a whisper upon the stormy winds that buffeted them. Then others took up the chorus. More and more took up the song as each line was sung. The rain receded into the background as the voices spoke as one. By the end of the song, they had forgotten all about the rain.

Erich was happy for the rain. It did an excellent job of hiding the tears of his men. The men of Tilea might be far freer with their emotions than most people of the Empire, but it was always unnerving to see grown men cry.

"Now lads, let us eat drink and be merry, for this is what our brothers would want of us." A tidal wave of cheers hit Erich as he stepped down from the rock. The funeral was over.

* * *

Peggy was on a ship once more. However, unlike the last time, this was not a trading ship with a few bunks for adventurers, but a proper military transport ship. It was built to move large numbers of men and materiel to the front lines. While space was cramped, the ship was filled to the brim with soldiers and sailors and all their gear. She enjoyed walking on deck. Her new rank and tabard made every enlisted man or woman salute her.

It had been quite the sight when right before the day's War Council was about to meet that a portal had opened up in the centre of the throne room. The warding around Stormwind Keep had been breached without effort. The Royal guard was scrambling to protect King Varian and Prince Anduin when the portal opened and a familiar figure stepped out. Lady Proudmoore was known to the people of the Keep. She occasionally came to visit Stormwind, preferring to take a portal of her own making instead of taking much more mundane ways of travel. The guards immediately sheathed their weapons and bowed. While an unscheduled visit, Lady Proudmoore was a long time friend of the King and very protective of Prince Anduin. She did not stay in the Throne room for long, and instead hurried to the War Council. It seemed that she was there for the day's discussion. Very little attention was paid to the unremarkable personage next to her, dressed in the fashion of a noble from Lordaeron. It seemed that the new diplomat was here.

Lady Proudmoore had personally commended her for a job well done during her stay as an impromptu diplomat, and given her a letter of commission in the alliance. Now she held the rank of a Knight, which meant her quarters on the ship were far more spacious than she had ever expected.

Dana was in Southshore with a small group of Lordaeronian soldiers, and Peggy would meet with her while the Alliance began to march into Southshore to reinforce it. From what she had heard from the war council, the war in the Eastern Kingdoms was still far from over. The forsaken had started to solidify control over the Western Plaguelands but their defeats in Silverpine had destroyed their momentum. The mercenaries had been instrumental in blunting the forsaken offensive. Now, they were to be the tip of the alliance spear.

Peggy was not informed as to the exact route of the orders. It was something to be delivered to the mercenary captain himself. Her job was all but finished. After she met with Dana, the two of them would be free to continue on their adventuring throughout azeroth. She had heard from the various druid emissaries in Stormwind that there was a greater threat to the world than the war itself. Deathwing needed to be stopped and Hyjal was where the hammer would fall. She was excited. The call of Hyjal was drawing adventurers and champions across the world to it's defence and there was good money to be had there. She would love to make a large sum of gold, and gather some exotic herbs from the foot of the world tree while she was at it. Peggy had heard that their extract made for some magical ink.

For now, she could enjoy all the perks that came with being a recognized champion of the Alliance.

* * *

Caledra walked into the inn and was greeted with the sight of nearly half a hundred mercenaries enjoying their drunken revel. A month ago, Pyrewood's inn had been a run down place filled with cobwebs and an aura of decay and death. Now, it was full of life. The sound of instruments wafted through the parlour and, even the rations, once cooked in the fireplace smelled nice Soldiers ran around and chased each other half dressed in armour and their regular clothes. On second glance, a lot of them seemed to be Men and Women of the Alliance. Drunkenness seemed to have erased the barriers of language between the two different groups.

She stepped over two men, one a mercenary and the other a Stormwind soldier wearing bits and pieces of each other's armour and walked up to Erich. The man seemed to never have stopped drinking since the funeral, four days ago. Even now he drank straight from a bottle of Pinot Noir while saying nothing in particular to the people at his table. Of course, they were largely younger women from the garrison on their break.

The other person who sat with Erich was his Lieutenant, the Arthas Doppelganger, Luigi, who sat opposite to him. Despite the initial bitter impression she had of him due to his looks, Serra had to admit that the young man was charming in his own way. While Erich was focused when he was sober and was an unstable mess while drunk, Luigi on the other hand was polite and well mannered, and seemed to mellow out even more when he had drank his fill. The few conversations Caledra had with him were pleasant enough. They had talked mostly of the weather or simple things like pine trees and acorns. He was from a large city, but was in love with the charms that being a travelling mercenary provided. Right now, he was strumming a string instrument and was surrounded by prettier women than his captain.

Caledra had been teaching him Common, and he was beginning to form complex sentences and getting used to the intricacies of the language. Right now, as soon as the two of them made eye contact, he gave her a wink and began to chat to the red headed girl next to him. Caledra saw the young lass giggle. Erich simply smiled at the scene.

"Captain, if I may have a word with you." She said with a diplomatic tone. Lately Caledra had noticed that speaking to the Captain with a firm voice was the best to get through his drunken moods. Despite the sorry state the man put himself in regularly, a spark of his sobriety remained.

"Yes, Captain Dawnbreeze, please. Would I interest you in a drink?" He spoke, his attempt at charming small talk mangled by his slurring. After seeing him on the battlefield, Caledra was finding it hard to reconcile that the drunken mess before her was the same person whose nerves of steel and commanding voice carried over the din of battle so effortlessly. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"No, I need you to give me my undivided attention, so I must remove you from your charming companions at present." She couldn't resist speaking like this to humans. Polite speech with a firm voice made them perturbed. Erich's face fell after hearing that.

Slowly he got up and put the bottle on the table. From the sound it made, Caledra could hear that it was almost empty. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. It was a very slight reaction, invisible to human eyes, but to another elf, it would have been as visible as the noon day sun.

"Farewell fair ladies, for duty calls me. Luigi, please do not break any hearts when I am away will you?" Erich said, making a bow that almost toppled him.

"I will not, Capitan." Luigi grinned back at Erich, and after a moment was mobbed by the women at his table as he began to play on his string.

"What a splendid lad."Erich slurred as he stumbled out of the inn. Caledra followed, trying to make sure he did not trip and break his skull on the floor or the doorway.

Outside she found him sticking a finger up his throat. The few soldiers outside, men of the Alliance stopped to laugh at him for a moment before continuing with their leisure or duties. Caledra found herself asking. "What are you doing?"

The answer was in Erich retching at the base of a tree. It continued for far longer than she would have been happy to, but presently he stopped and uncorked a bottle. Rinsing his mouth, he turned to look at her. "Getting sober. What do want?"

Caledra was about to ask him if he needed some time, but decided against it. If he wanted to hear what she had to say, he would. It would seem things were afoot in the wider world beyond the confines of Pyrewood village.

Druid Moonclaw had arrived this morning. He had been travelling to and from Southshore to keep her and Lieutenant Melrick appraised of the situation. Until two days ago, it was nothing of importance. On occasion, Horde scouts and adventurers tried to infiltrate Southshore, but the bolstered garrison there was on full alert. The brutes never made it back to safety. Even Tarren Mill was being resettled with the help of Farmers from Westfall. Nothing of importance to bother Erich or the mercenaries with.

She spoke quickly. "The Alliance is sending reinforcements to hold Pyrewood and turn it into a bolstered front line. A thousand men will be coming up the road in a day or two to relieve you from holding this position."

His eyes sharpened. "What are our orders?"

"Here. These are our orders." She said, holding up a heavy piece of parchment.

Erich took it from her hands and began to read. She saw his eyes narrow once or twice, but he did not ask any questions before handing the letter back to her. She placed it carefully in her satchel wondering if he had managed to read the letter properly and could even comprehend it's contents in his current state.

"You are coming with us?" That was the first question he asked. His tone suggested that he already knew the answer.

"Yes, I am. Lieutenant Melrick and I have been ordered to be Official Liaisons with the Von Peiper Regiment for the duration of this war. That means it will be our responsibility to make sure you follow your orders from the Battlemasters." She did not bother asking him how he had figured it out while he was absolutely smashed. When it came to matters of warfare, it would seem that Erich Von Peiper was capable of processing the most cryptic commands in the worst conditions with an ease that was startling.

Caledra saw Erich exhale slowly. Smart or not, this amount of drinking was bound to have adverse reactions on his psyche and body. Then he spoke. "I suppose we can better discuss this in the town hall?"

At this time, the town hall had nobody except the two of them. Caledra seated herself on a Box, and Erich sat next to her. She could still smell the slight scent of bile on his breath. It was disgusting. Caledra was sick of Pyrewood in general, and the town hall was the worst.

"When are we to move out?" Erich asked. Caledra noticed that his slurred speech all but gone. It seemed that the walk had done him good.

"When the army arrives."

"I see." Erich paused and clutched his head for a moment, before taking a deep breath and continuing. "Tell me about the terrain."

"It is largely mountainous and the roads are largely out of repair, but the area itself seems to be deserted. The march should take us a fortnight from Southshore, so we should be on the other side of the mountains before the month falls."

Erich scratched his eye and dug out a speck after listening to her plan for the march. "When does the Snow start to cover up the passes?"

"What? How do you know that?" It was a startling question to ask. Erich had assured her that he knew next to nothing about the land. Now he was asking questions that would be approved by Ironforge mountaineers.

Erich simply chuckled at that and tapped his skull."My dear girl, it does not take a wizard to realize that the further north we keep moving, the higher the snows begin to pile. There might be a very good chance that we might even get stuck in the mountains during winter." Then his smile vanished. "Unless we are extremely lucky, it will be our tomb."

"There is no other way. You will do as you have been told." Caledra tried to keep her voice firm. For her efforts, Erich stared at her with a gaze that was remorseless.

"Unless my conditions have been met, I refuse to do what you are asking of me. And after reading the letter it would seem that I have the upper hand now." Any trace of conversational warmth Erich had held in his voice had gone away.

"What? We are paying you - "

"To march up a mountain pass right before the snows fall and entomb us in the cold. We do not have any winter supplies or gear, and if the worst comes to pass, we will be stuck in a frozen land for months on end with nothing to eat but each other. I am sure that will be grisly end for both you and young Melrick, not to mention nearly all of my men. I did not crush two undead armies in two months to freeze to death on a mountain top waiting for the snows to melt."

Caledra sighed and reread her orders. At the bottom, in Thalassian was a note addressed just to her and affixed with a symbol of the alliance.

 _Keep the mercenaries on our side, money and supplies are of no issue. Go with Honour, Captain._

"Very well, what do you want from the Alliance?"

"A list of things. Sergeant Littorio will give you the details, but in broad strokes, I want the following things." He paused and composed himself before saying, "Firstly, Our salary is to be tripled."

"What? How am I supposed to - "

"When you hired us, we were a bunch of rag tag mercenaries in who had somehow over come an undead force about to destroy Southshore. Now, we are a mercenary army who has crushed a vast undead army and secured any gains the Alliance has made in the past few months. Our prices will reflect that starting from the next month." The man was relentless.

"Fine, I will see what I can do." Caledra gritted her teeth. Despite her express instructions she was chafing at the exorbitant amount the mercenary was asking.

"Secondly, supplies of all sorts. Winter clothing, food, drink, pack animals, the whole set. For an army at least thrice as big as ours and lasting for several months if necessary If by some miraculous chance we avoid the snow, we are still going to be cut off from communications until the snow melts. I don't know about men and women of the alliance but for my part, I would not eat tainted food."

"But we have to supply the forces here as well! You would have them starve?" The human's demands were getting more preposterous by the sentence.

"No. Your supply lines will we operating at full efficiency because you have a port here. My boys on the other hand are going to be cut off completely in a month or so. I am simply asking for higher priority in requisitioning supplies. It will not even be long. A week's worth of cargo from the ships docking at Southshore would be enough to keep us supplied with everything I have requested."

"I am afraid you are asking too much, but I will inform my superiors about your demands."

"Thirdly, I require armourers and blacksmiths. And the supplies they will need to forge armour and weapons. These will be separate from our provisions and will not be paid by the Alliance."

Caledra let out a laugh at this demand. This was highway robbery. Erich simply raised and eyebrow in response.

"And I suppose to finish this deal, you will demand that I mate with you on this table right now?" She asked in a hysterical voice.

"Sorry, you are too skinny for my tastes, my dear. However, do tell me about this mountain land that we will be going through." Erich replied curtly. Caledra realised that he had not been joking about requiring armourers and blacksmiths. Armies on campaign often had quartermasters and smiths to repair armour and weapons. He had been serious all along.

Now it was Caledra's turn to clutch her forehead. She had to brief him about the land they would be passing through in a month.

A fallen Kingdom of men that had been abandoned by its allies and had helped the Orcish Horde during the Second War. A nation that only existed in the annals of history and in curses from the people of the Alliance. The Nation of Alterac

* * *

 ** _A/N, had a bit of a writer's block. I think it shows a little bit, but I have more stuff planned out._**

 _ **Guest, well it is fanfiction so - you will find out what I mean once we get there.**_

 _ **CaptnDetergent, Everyone loves Gotrek the Duardin who is now being shoehorned into Age of Sigmar so that GW can pee on our childhood and call mountain dew.**_

 _ **Ryan, thanks for the kind word**_


	19. Chapter 19

**Northward Bound**

* * *

Serra yawned. The last week had worn her out. Being a Mage of the white tower, she never had to walk for long distances for weeks on end. Erich might be a laid back human when he was in his cups, but the man never slackened his pace during any form of military action. They had spent the entire week marching back to Southshore at a pace that was uncomfortable for her. She had been spending her weekend resting and meditating. Her room in the Southshore tavern was rather spartan for even the most rustic elf. For all the discomforts she had suffered from the march with the Dogs of War, Serra was finally in shape for another long journey.

A large backpack, filled with food, water and potions was the only thing of note in her room. She had enchanted the backpack to feel as light as a knife, which was rather handy. Serra did not have the stamina of humans, and most high elves would have hired porters to carry the luggage for them. High Loremaster Teclis was one of the few elves who actually carried his own possessions on his person, preferring to enchant his items instead of troubling someone else to carry it for him. While most other loremasters found it to be an oddity – one among several that Teclis had. For her part, Serra had largely paid it no mind, but was finding the methods the High Loremaster used to be particularly useful now.

She had made enquiries at the Harbour for a ship that went north. While the dockmaster had been puzzled by her demands, eventually he had gone through his list and Serra had booked for a passage to a place call Valgarde. The ship would be sailing tomorrow, so for the first time in a long while, Serra had a day entirely to herself. On other days, she would have spent the time meditating or compiling her notes. Now her notes were in her bag, and a day before a long journey, she was not in the right state of mind to meditate. There would be time enough on the ship.

She got up and got dressed. She and Erich were of a similar height, and the clothes he had given her had fit remarkably well. Her breasts were far too visible for her taste, but otherwise the clothes fit just fine. If some of her fellow mages saw her, they would laugh at her. It was not uncommon for elves who travelled abroad to come back with some sort of vague eccentricities. Often times, merchants who made their fortune in the distant lands of the Empire, Cathay or Ind would often return wearing their most expensive formal dresses done in the human manner to show off their travels. Had the winds of fate blown differently, Serra herself would have be one of those elven traders, wearing Cathayan Silken cloth in the Indish manner.

Instead, here she was wearing a mixture of a noble and common wear – second hand no less – that a human had given her for her journey. Her battle apparel was stored safely in her backpack, with a large tent. Serra didn't need the warm clothes. Her skill in magic was enough to keep her warm in the harshest winter. Instead she had decided to take several bottles of strong rum and other spirits during her journey. Erich had laughed at that. The man could drink like a fish and smelled like one too after a battle. It was his backpack she was borrowing.

Convincing Erich had been surprisingly easy. On the first day of the march, he had thrown a tantrum. They needed her, he had said. For all the speeches that he made in front of his men, Erich used knowledge as a sharp knife, keeping it close to his chest and only using it to make the most subtle of cuts. The battle had been on a knife's edge, with the Mercenaries falling off when Serra had unleashed her magic. Erich had hoped that the battle itself would have been decided by then, but the flying necromancer maidens had begun to raise the dead in front of their very eyes. Serra – bolstered by Asuryan's power had managed to defeat them, but as Erich admitted to her, it had been a very close call. Closer than he would have dared to hope.

On the third day, they had talked in low whispers over a camp fire, careful to make sure that no one else listened in on their conversation. It was a bright and starry night, and for a change, Erich talked about nothing in particular. He mostly asked her of the things Serra had seen and shared some of his stories. Serra was bored. Like everything that humans did, their stories were short and annoyingly droll. She was about to leave when something Erich said stopped her in her tracks.

"I have to admit, in all my life, I have never seen Morrslieb like this." He pointed to the smaller blue moon, looking over the world like an eye. Serra exhaled. The human had figured out exactly how far away they were.

"That is because, it is not Morrslieb." She said, confident that the human would act surprised. While Erich was smart enough on the battlefield, it did not mean that he was going to be smart enough out of it.

Once again, he simply shrugged. "I noticed. There is no sense of dread when the smaller blue moon waxes and wanes. It is rather odd, that I can look up in the night skies, and not feel terror as I gaze upon the moons. How long were you planning on hiding it Serra?" Erich's voice was conversational.

"I was going to tell you tonight." She replied.

"Is that so?" Erich's lips moved in the hint of a smile. "Well, now you don't need to." He shook his shoulders and yawned.

"Listen Erich, I need to go north. I have meditated upon the magical currents of this world and I know that there is something to the north that can get us back home." Serra could not keep an edge of desperation out of her voice. Thankfully for her, humans were too crude to pick up the subtleties of elven expressions. To Erich, she was still carrying on a conversation about something distant.

"How do you know that?" Erich's eyes gleamed and his voice took a slightly more serious tone. To Serra it was as clear as the blowing of a trumpet. Erich was asking her more pointed questions.

"After the battle, I felt a great font of power to the north. I reached out to it, and found my gods patiently waiting for me there. They have directed me to go north to find the answers I seek."

Erich chuckled at that before taking a deep breath and continuing, "My my, you sound like a fanatic who hears the voices of her patron god who demands that she fight with the worshippers of other gods. We had plenty of those in Nuln. I never took you for one of them."

Serra stood up"I am not some addlepated human with a little bit of magic in her bones who hears the voices in his head and declares that her god has charged her with impossible quests. I am a mage of the White Tower, and I know the essence of the Father of the Elven Race when I see him."

Erich did not move when she got up. Instead he cracked his knuckled and smiled up at her. "I must say, you look flawless when the moonlight falls upon your face and makes your eyes glitter. It goes well when you keep your hair down"

Serra took the compliment in her stride. "Are you saying I look less perfect when I am not standing over you in the moonlight?" She could not help but reply.

"Not at all." Erich said, with the slight smile still on his face. Then with a quick motion he got up.

"Tomorrow afternoon, my tent. You will need a larger bag for your travels." His words were quick and his tone was curt. Then, he left.

Now Serra was just walking by the harbour, daring anyone to whistle at her. If the men at the docks even attempted to look her in the eyes, she stared at them until they backed down. Serra could be quite fierce if she wanted to, and Erich's attempts at complimenting her looks only rattled her more. Humans were largely frightened of Elves and desired them. In contrast to their overly muscled ape-like bodies, elves were thinner, and graceful to an extent that humans could not hope to match. Even the most perverted followers of Slaanesh moved with a fluidity that was a pale imitation of those of the Eldest Race.

She turned around and saw another ship enter the harbour. It was unlike any other Serra had ever seen thus far. In contrast to the large human ships, this was slender and artfully made. It almost seemed like it grew from living wood rather than made of wood. It glided through the water and stopped right in front of the quay. The sails were slender and made of a material that shimmered in the sea breeze. Everything about it's design seemed to be Elven. It would seem that elves, no matter what world they were from had grace in every thing they did. Although Serra had to admit, the longer ears on Caledra were rather grotesque.

Serra was not the only one who was watching it with interest. Several dockworkers and porters began to mill around the quay to watch who came out. From the murmuring and commotion, it seemed that ships of this type were not common here. Serra picked up the word "Night Elf" several times. This was turning out to be interesting. Sailors ran about to secure it to the wooden posts and presently a gangplank was lowered.

Half a hundred elves exited from the ship and marched up in formation. Serra did not have to look at them to know that they were all women. The sharp intake of breath and the slavering tongues from the dockworkers would have been enough. What was most interesting about them was their colour.

Serra had long thought Druid Moonclaw was an elf who had communed with nature and turned to a more dusky hue. She had heard something similar happen to the Asur who had been left in the Old world after the High Elves had abandoned their colonies after the War of the Beard. The elves, in love with their forested homes had refused the call of Ulthuan. They had strayed in the lands beyond and had become part of the forests of the Old World. Just like the Asur who resided in Avelorn did.

To Serra's keen senses, these female warriors had an aura of savagery, Their armour was a mix of leather and chain mail that was dull even in the noon light. There was a feral air about them, that reminded her of the Shadow Warriors. Elves that lived for a long time in a land would become like the land itself. Shadow Warriors were the children of Nagarythe, and it's taint affected them just as it affected the Druchii. It poured off the purple elves in a similar manner. Although there was something unique about them. Their eyes gleamed with power that was similar to Serra's own. A godlike being had touched these elves a long time ago, and it's power still lingered in them. Serra in contrast had been imbued with the power of Asuryan himself and the touch of the god still lingered.

The strange purple elves stared at her, all at once. It was hard to tell if there was a latent sense of hostility in their gaze or if they were merely unused to an elf like Serra. Three centuries ago, she would have quailed under their glare. But an Asur who fights against their twisted Kin in the bleak lands of Naggaroth and reaves the Norscan settlements at the edge of the Chaos wastes does not buckle under stares. She stared right back at their commander, meeting the strange elf's gaze.

Unlike the rest of her troops, she wore slightly heavier armour that glittered brightly in the sunlight. Her pauldrons were much larger than the rest of her troops. It was something Serra had noticed. The higher the rank a warrior or soldier in the Alliance had, the more unwieldy their pauldrons were. She wondered how the commander of this troupe of elves could even see to her sides. In contrast to her glittering rainment, the rest of the female warriors seemed adept at blending into the surroundings.

When the entire troop of soldiers, around fifty had assembled, they began to march into the town. They moved with a grace that was beyond the most lithe human, every step so effortlessly delicate that it seemed that they were a bunch of noblewomen frolicking in the woods without a care in the world. Apparently some of the dockworkers liked what they saw, as several of them wolf-whistled. The entire platoon stopped. With a speed that Serra was sure was a blur to the humans surrounding her, a dozen of them nocked their arrows and let loose.

Serra had to admit. It was rather impressive. The arrows flew just over the heads of the humans, who were shorter than the Night elven women, and struck various boxes or buildings. The humans yelped and ran for cover. The elves passed through the length of the quay unmolested. Suddenly Serra was face to face with their leader.

She sized Serra up and down for a moment before saying something to her warriors. A few of them tittered. Serra wondered what the language was. It sounded similar to Thalassian, but she could not make out what the words meant.

"Can I help you?" Serra asked in her most polite tone, speaking common.

"Yes, my good half elven maiden. We were wondering where the Mercenary Army is that we are supposed to accompany is located." There was a slightly arrogant tone in the elf's voice which implied far more than what she let on.

Serra simply smiled and said, "Outside Southshore, near the Stone Tower." She had seen enough of these elves. It seemed that the last month and a half of fighting with the humans had rubbed off a little on her, and she suddenly found elves to be rather ostentatious. She turned to go back to the tavern and get a drink.

A mailed hand on her shoulder stopped her. The Night Elf leader was rather bold. Serra wondered if she could take them all in a fight right now. A crowd began to gather. It would her grip on her staff slackened and she turned to face the Night Elf. "Yes?"

"Where is your commanding officer halfbreed?" All traces of mirth had gone from the Night Elf's face. This close, Serra could study the elf's physique. She really was a shadow warrior. She could make out her toned body, muscles rippling below the leather of the elf's armour.

"I have none." There was no point in a physical struggle with the Night Elf. She was taller, stronger and more armoured. If Serra was threatened, she would burn half the town to teach the savage proper manners. Maybe she would even let her life afterwards.

Suddenly a pair of familiar voices rang out behind out. Erich and Caledra were walking behind the two of them.

"Lady Swiftarrow, over here please." Caledra's voice rang through the din of the street. The night elf looked over Serra's shoulder. However her hand did not move. Serra tightened her grip on her staff. If this bitch did not remove her hand, she would lose it.

"Captain Von Peiper, may I introduce you to commander Swiftarrow? She is to be the final member of your expedition northward." While the elf's voice was diplomatic, Serra could sense the worried tone in her voice. It seemed that the two kinds of elves had some sort of distaste for each other. She just had the misfortune of being stuck between them.

"Ah, Lady Swiftarrow. I have been awaiting your arrival." Erich said. She wondered if he was drunk. With Erich it might be hard to tell. He could be drunk and speak perfectly coherently, or slur depending on what his mood was.

Thankfully, the night elf removed her hand and saluted him. Serra quickly took a step back. She began to walk back towards Erich when she stopped and stared. He was wearing his richest tunic. It was something like a military uniform but richly made. She did not have to look twice to notice that the embroidery was made of real gold. To complete his look,had shaven his face not an hour ago. Without his hat and in his crisp uniform, he looked like a different man – and all for the better.

In two long strides she stood next to him, for once glad of his presence. Erich continued. "I hope you had a pleasant journey. I hear that crossing a continent in a boat is an arduous journey."

The Night elf walked close up to Erich. Serra saw a few of the elves stand in a gaggle and look intently in the direction of the conversation.

"Indeed it is Captain. I am to join your forces in the march north. We shall be ready for the march within the hour." The night elf spoke rather warmly to Erich in contrast to her conversation with Serra.

"Ah, we march tomorrow. You can get your girls some rest. We have much to talk about. Perhaps over a drink in my encampment?" Erich smiled at her. Serra had never seen him try to be charming before.

It seemed to be working. Lady Swiftarrow tittered and nodded. "Very well then Captain. Care to give me your arm?"

Erich was nonplussed for a moment but recovered admirably. "It would be an honour and a pleasure."

He extended his arm, and the elf took it graciously. With her spare hand she signalled to her troops to follow.

Serra was about to leave when Erich asked her in Reikspiel. "Serra, did she hurt you?" She saw that Caledra froze upon hearing that. The long eared elf had not deigned to war her, and Serra had nearly been forced to burn the impudent Night elves to the ground. This was rather pointless.

"No, Captain, I am fine." Serra replied.

Erich nodded and started to walk. The platoon of night elven women followed.

Caledra was the only one left. "What was that all about?" Serra asked her.

"Ah yes, Kal'dorei. They are our distant cousins from Kalimdor. They seem to disapprove of our kind using magic."

Serra snorted. "They can try and stop me."

"Ah, I see. We wondered why Su'ura was clutching your shoulder. I hope you took no offence to her." Caledra said diplomatically.

"None taken" Serra replied. Part of her wanted to kill Su'ura in a not-so-painless manner. Bidding Caledra farewell, she left for the tavern.

The tavern itself was rather full. Serra sat in a corner, next to a human and a halfling who were talking among themselves. While she would usually drink without paying the rest of the world any mind, she was interested in the two of them. It seemed that they were discussing magic.

"Yes, but we will have to go to Northrend for that Dana. I don't know how to open a portal that well." The halfling was saying. Her bright pink hair was in neat pig tails.

The older woman replied. "Well use your new position Peggy. You can book a berth to Valgarde easily. The ship leaves tomorrow."

"But it takes a month to go there!"

"Yes, but it is far more reliable than you transporting us to Shattrah or the maelstrom. Besides, you can now use the ships for free."

"Fine, I will do it." The Halfling seemed rather put off by that. Sitting next to the woman, she looked like a overgrown child arguing with her mother. Serra had to stifle a laugh.

"Excuse me. I could not help but overhear that you are going to Valgarde." Serra interjected into the conversation. The duo turned to look at her.

"Yes, we are." The older woman spoke. The halfling moved behind her after seeing Serra.

"I see. Have either one of you been there before? I am going to Valgarde for the first time myself. I have no idea what to expect."

"Oh, I have been there. Peggy has not. Maybe we can go on the trip together?" The woman seemed quite friendly but the halfling was staring at her with wide eyes.

"Yes. Thank you for letting me accompany you." Serra replied.

After a few minutes, the woman ordered a fresh set of drinks and joined Serra. For the first time in a long while Serra had someone to talk to about magic. Much to her surprise, the human seemed a competent enough mage to glean how magic worked in the world. Eventually, even the Halfling joined in the discussion.

Eventually the sun set, and Serra parted ways with the two companions. Tomorrow was going to be an important day. But for Serra, today had been bigger.

Being accosted by the strange purple elves at the docks had rattled about magic with the duo had been a welcome distraction, and strangely liberating. She had learned enough about magic in Azeroth to fill out her journal.

Instead she focused on the trivial things they had talked about. Like all the Asur, she long held beliefs that Humans were largely dumb and brutish, while halflings were a grotesque oddity best kept as pets. The High Loremaster had been one of the few elves in her circles who had treated humans as something more than simple cattle. The Phoenix King was also of like mind. She had thought it to be another eccentricity that came with power. Humans were simple creatures and Halflings were their stupider cousins.

Now she was not so sure.

* * *

Erich's greatest worry had come to pass. They had marched for a week and a half to reach another deserted town that Caledra said was once the trade centre of Alterac. This high up in the mountains, the air was thin enough that most of his men were hyperventilating or getting exhausted quickly. Normally eight hours of sleep was enough for soldiers but now, as they had been climbing higher and higher eight slowly became nine, and nine became twelve. Their marching pace had been slowing down to a crawl.

The falling snow only began to make it worse. Erich had worried if too many supplies had not begun to slow them down, bogging them down in the snow. He had seriously given thought to the possibility one night of returning down to Southshore. It was clear to him that if this pace continued, the passes north would be snowed under before long. The longer they waited here, the likelier it would be that the southern passes would start to become impassable.

One night, in the base of a large abandoned tower, Erich was slowly discussing this with his men. Every commander, from the dwarf duo and their diminutive gnomish companion, to Caledra and Melrick – who was in command of the the gilnean volunteers – were warming their hands by the fire. Erich had been careful to place Littorio close to the fire. The man was old, and Luigi and Hans were making sure that he did not accidentally doze off and light himself on fire in the first place. Rodrigo and his men were scouting to the south, making sure they were not being followed. Lady Swiftarrow was doing the same to the north. Erich and Caledra were to translate. As a result she sat next to him, warming her hands in the fire.

Erich had been extremely intrigued by the warrior women that called themselves the Night Elven Sentinels. He had heard stories about warrior women who lived in the jungles of Lustria, called amazons who ambushed any trespassers that wandered into their forest and killed them. While he had initially scoffed at the reports, thinking they were masturbatory fancies of penniless explorers, he could agree that there might be a distant possibility that it might be true. Lustria was already home to violent and savage lizards that regularly murdered explorers and burned colonies. Beautiful warrior women who viciously murdered anyone who dared to enter their sacred forests might not be too fantastical in comparison.

These Sentinels certainly fit the bill perfectly. Their beauty was statuesque. Each aspect of their faces beautifully carved, from their cheekbones to their full lips and long tapering ears seemed like it was from the hands of a master craftsman at his prime chiselling away the finest marble. Their eyes seemed to glow with a similar colour to the light of the moon, and their voices were melodious and their language sounded like music. When one of them laughed, every man within earshot stopped what he was doing and turned to stare at her.

The fact that they were often a head taller than the men of Tilea did not diminish their beauty. Combined with their highly toned and muscled bodies, and the chainmail armour that exposed their toned bellies and chests to the world, they seemed like the vivid dreams of an overly imaginative boy come to life in a terrifying and spectacular way.

And they were excellent scouts too. When they moved in the snow, they barely left even a single print to give a hint to their presence. They moved with a grace that was as quiet as a cat, and perhaps the most strange of all was their natural state of repose. These beings were catlike in their movements. Erich had heard that the far lands of Ind had beastmen that took the form of giant hunting cats called tigers. Unlike the beasts of the old world, they did not defile and plunder human towns, but rather protected them against the agressions of the dark elves. These women reminded him in some way of those tigers. Perhaps it was the fact that Lady Swiftarrow rode one of those creatures. The beast was as big as the largest Bretonnian warhorse, and bespoke of quiet grace in it's movements. The Night Elven Sentinels were as graceful and majestic as their great hunting cats.

Erich sat quietly at a desk, listening to the slow and steady din of hammers outside. Dwarfs were hard at work fixing the town. Of course, they had started with the smithy first. The windows of the small building glowed with a warm and orange glow. Two bickering dwarfs with their accents so heavy that Erich could not understand what they said were hard at work stoking the flames and getting the forge to work. A small number of Gilnean apprentices worked with them. Before the war they had been blacksmiths and engineers, and they certainly preferred their talents to be put to good use there.

Of course once Erich had heard Lady Swiftarrows' report that there was an abandoned town a day's march to the north with plenty of firewood, a way to solve this dilemma had risen up. An abandoned town with most of it's buildings intact would be a great place to spend the winter. Erich had given up hope of actually reaching the place so flippantly named the Plaguelands before winter set in. As her pondered more and more, the stupidity of the plan began to get clearer. He had a schedule that had been wildly optimistic to put it mildly. Even if by some stroke of divine intervention with a heavy side of luck he managed to complete the march in time, his forces would be ill from the change in weather. They would not be in any condition to fight.

So, here was was now, slowly rebuilding another ruined town. To his shock, this town was far more dilapidated than even Pyrewood. The men had only just begun breaking their tents and moving into houses that had been repaired under the direction of the Gnome and the Dwarfs. While everyone else worked. Caledra had filled him in on the fate of this land and it's deslolate nature.

When the human Empire first broke up hundreds of years ago, Alterac had been the weakest. It largely survived due to it's mountainous nature and state as a buffer kingdom between Lordaeron and Strom. When the Orc Horde invaded the world, Alterac joined the Alliance to defend against this threat and promptly stabbed the Alliance in the back. As a result, some of the greatest heroes of Lordaeron travelled to Alterac and destroyed it's kingdom utterly. All that remained, which included Strahnbrad slowly became a somewhat important trade town in the aftermath of the War. When Lordaeron fell to the curse of undeath the town was abandoned and fell into disrepair. Whatever remained of what was once a proud nation was scattered to the winds.

Erich – having nothing better to do began to ask more about Alterac to Caledra. She largely had nothing more to add. The capital was somewhere to the east, and likely abandoned as well. According to the dwarfs who lived in the Alterac Valley, the land was rich with iron and gold. There might be some scattered bandits who lived on the northern reaches but the actual roadway was largely abandoned.

Then they moved on to other matters. Erich wanted Caledra to teach some of his men – mostly his sergeants – Common. While they were picking up the language slowly, there was nothing much to do than to learn a language. Communication was essential if they were to make any headway whatsoever or fight as part of a larger army. If the worst happened, someone else would need to take on Erich's mantle and lead his company to glory.

It was at this moment that rodrigo ran in. Despite the biting cold outside, he was sweating and his face was full of fear and alarm. Outside Erich could hear the stamp of many feet out in the snow. Hans and Luigi were barking orders – while they were too far away, their voices carried out over on the cold wind that blew throughout the town.

"Rodrigo, what in Myrmidia's name is going on outside?" Erich asked

"Signor, woe is upon us. A force of Ogres is approaching the town from the south."

Caledra got up to retrieve her bow. Erich cocked his pistol, sheathed his sword up and strode out into the cold and biting streets of Strahnbrad to lead his men.

"Where are they coming from?" He said to Rodrigo who hurried after him.

"Eh, Signor? I can't hear you in this damned wind."

"I SAID, 'WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM?'" Erich shouted. Rodrigo's expression shifted as he heard the question.

"From the south. There must be over a score of them Signor. They will be here within the hour if they keep the same pace."

"Listen to me. We can't assume that. I want Hans' men ready within fifteen minutes, and Littorio's men ready within half an hour. You tell them to get their boys ready and spread your lads outside to keep watch. This damn weather is making it hard to see."

"What about you Signor?"

"I am going to help Luigi rally the men. Tell Hans to fall back to the dead fountain if they need to."

"Signor, what about the rest of them?"

"Who are you talking about?"

"The Dwarfs and the tall women?"

"I will see what I can do. You go ahead and do what I asked you to do."

"Yes Capitan. May Myrmidia bless us."

"Good luck Sergeant. You keep your eyes peeled for ogres."

Erich had to admit Rodrigo made a fair point. The few dwarfs and gilneans were largely civilians that were better left somewhere safe. Those warrior women on the other hand would be a great asset if their fighting skill was half as good as their savage beauty.

"Caledra. Where are you?" He shouted into the wind.

"Over here Erich." A voice came from behind him. Her footsteps were inaudible in the wind. Erich saw that the cold was causing her nose to slowly redden.

"Caledra. Find those Sentinels for me. Those ogres will be upon us within the hour. My men cannot fight well in the cold. We need all the help we can get."

She nodded and sprinted gracefully into the dark. Erich watched her get swallowed up by the night before continuing to walk. As it turned out, he did not have to walk very far.

Luigi was doing a good job organising his men. If the young man had an hour more, he would have been able to do it all by himself. However there was not enough time to watch his protégé organise men in a surprise attack. Erich yelled loudly, and watched his men begin to fall into rows and columns with speed. If they were not on the verge of being attacked he would have smiled.

* * *

 _ **Aburg76, the man knows his business**_

 _ **CaptnDetergent, yeah. Flipside for being a killer for hire. Sometimes you get killed.**_


	20. Chapter 20

**New Foes**

* * *

Even as Caledra ran through the ruins of Strahnbrad, soldiers kept pouring out of the houses, confused and a little bewildered. They stumbled around a little before hearing the voices of their sergeants and then fumbling around for their weapons or armaments. She had to stop for a few moments when she noticed that some of them were gasping for breath of bleeding out of their noses. Once or twice she stopped to help a soldier up on their feet. They wheezed as they thanked her and slowly began to dress for battle.

Caledra was a little terrified at the state of the soldiers. She had never seen anyone so weak before. A small party of Halberdiers ran – or rather stumbled – by her, their heavy footsteps unsure of where they were falling. A dozen crossbowmen ran throughout the street yelling for their leader while only a few of them had bolts in their quivers. Erich's voice carried over from afar, yelling at his men to form up. There was complete panic in the snowy ruins of Strahnbrad. In contrast to the rock steady soldiers that they had been on the outskirts of Pyrewood, they seemed more like crippled peasants running to defend themselves. What was wrong with these humans? Ogres were formidable foes at the best of times, and depending on how many ogres there were, the humans' chances of defeat would range from slim to none.

She had to find Lady Swiftarrow before the battle was joined. The Night Elven leader had taken her sentinels northwards to scout out the northern passes. Between the falling snow and the worsening condition of the soldiers, it was clear to Caledra that they would be in Strahnbrad for the winter. That meant at least two months in a land that was nearly as desolate as Lordaeron. At least Erich had managed to secure enough supplies to last the winter. If this battle went well that was. From where she was standing, Caledra began to sincerely doubt that the humans were going to win.

Another angry shout from Erich brought her to the present. He was yelling at the crossbowmen to enter the houses and find enough high ground. They were to fire on his mark. Caledra did not pay attention to the rest. She had her own problems. She kept running until she reached the eastern edge of the town. While the town seemed abandoned, something caught her attention. While the town had all the appearances of being abandoned a while ago, she found large amounts of furniture outside the town, as if it had been used to make makeshift barricades. In comparison to the buildings, the snow they were buried in was far less, which suggested that they had only been moved recently. Perhaps a day or two before the Von Peiper Company actually managed to reach the town, all the furniture had been thrown out and the town vacated. The people who had done this were clever enough not to use the road, but rather run out in the snow and wait for the drifts to cover their tracks.

Someone clever enough to abandon the town and cover their tracks when the force had almost reached them. Ogres were not known for their cleverness, even the two headed variety. It could only mean that the denizens of the town had lured them to strahnbrad. Suddenly, Caledra felt eyes looking down upon her. Her centuries as a farstrider to trust her instincts away from the confines of cities. Right now her instincts were coming to the forefront, taking over her body. When it had happened to her for the first time, Caledra, then barely a child had dropped like a bag of rocks, her body overwhelmed with the surge of her vital forces flowing through her. Decades of training and breathing exercises had taught her to control her vitae, instead of it controlling her. Legendary rangers like the Windrunner sisters could do feats of acrobatics that were all but impossible without the aid of magic. Now one of the legendary trio was lost, another was a home-maker, and they were fighting the third one.

She turned to run back to Erich when she saw an owl fly overhead. Normally she would not even have noticed it, but right now every sense in her body was hyperactive. She could see the owl flying over her head in slow motion. The snowflakes closest to her seemed to hang for an eternity in the air as she began to make out their shapes in details. If her body had been able to keep up with her senses, she would have sketched an incredibly beautiful vista of a winter's night in Alterac. What was most surprising to her was the size of the owl. In contrast to the snowy owls that were common in Lordaeron and the Northern Eastern kingdoms, it was twice as large, and of a colour that would have blended perfectly in the shadowy forest of Ashenvale. Caledra swore and changed her tracks. She had found the Night Elven Sentinels.

The owl flew over a rocky outcropping and hooted. Normally, she would barely have heard it in the din that was taking place in the town, but now her enhanced sense she heard it as loudly as a clap of thunder. She began to sprint towards the outcropping, barely leaving a footprint in the snow. Her speed would have seemed like a blur to all the humans in the village, like a trick of the eyes. Within a few seconds she had run clear of the village, and was climbing up the rocky outcropping with a grace that would have shamed a mountain goat. Within the minute, she was clear and dragged herself to the top before drawing a breath. Even as she finished, half a dozen nocked arrows pointed at her.

She smiled for a second at the sentinels. Their stony and eerie faces stared at her in response. Caledra's smile faded. She said "I have a message for Lady Swiftarrow" in common. The Sentinels did not respond. She repeated the same in Thalassian. One of them nodded and helped her up.

"Over there on the Ledge. We are keeping an eye out on for any aggressors coming from the northern passes."

Caledra nodded and continued on her way. She had to admit. The Night Elves were just as good as the farstriders in the art of hiding themselves. If she had not know where to look, Caledra doubted she could have spotted them at all. As it was, the Kal'dorei had managed to train their bows on her when she had made the climb.

Lady Swiftarrow was standing on the highest point of the outcrop overlooking Strahnbrad. She was looking with interest as the mercenaries scrambled to form up their lines. Her armour glinted in the moonlight, the large amount of mithril plate making everything above her neck glitter like a star. She was surrounded by the tallest of her soldiers, armed with glaives and shields. Caledra had to admit, the entire thing had been a designed with both stealth and awe in mind. She took a knee.

"Lady Swiftarrow, Strahnbrad is going to be under attack by a band of Ogres momentarily. Commander Von Peiper needs your assistance in defending the town."

Su'ura Swiftarrow did not move. Instead she asked something rather inconsequential. "I know it is only natural, but I never thought that the humans would look like insects from up here. What do you think captain?"

Caledra noticed that she asked the question in Common. Night elves spoke common only when they needed to. They conversed with the high and blood elves in Thalassian or Darnassian. The languages were mutually intelligible enough to pass off as dialects. As a result, most night elves only learned common if they really needed to, largely depending on High elves to do most of the interpretation work. The fact that Su'ura Swiftarrow was asking her this question in common would mean that she was trying to keep her warriors in the dark.

"It is because they are below us Lady Swiftarrow." This had to be lead somewhere. Caledra would have rolled her eyes if she had dared.

"Well said Captain Dawnbreeze. They seem like insects because they are below us." The tone in her voice was enough to tell Caledra that Su'ura was smiling.

Lady Swiftarrow raised her hand and the Sentinels began to descend at a quick pace down the mountainside, keeping parallel to the southern road. As they began to descend, they saw the lumbering shapes of ogres waddling towards the town. Caledra ran behind her, keeping a grip on her bow. She did not need to ask Su'ura what she was planning to do. It was clear that they were going to run behind the Ogres and shoot them in the rear once they had engaged Erich's men.

"Tell me, Captain Dawnbreeze, are these humans always these weak?" The question was posed in Darnassian. Caledra noticed that the Sentinels closest to them perked their ears up even as they moved.

"What do you mean, Lady Swiftarrow."

"These humans. They are stumbling towards the front – struggling with simple snow. They might as well be from another world than the men of Stormwind that their brutish King led to Ashenvale." Her voice was dismissive of the mercenaries.

A month ago, Caledra would have agreed wholeheartedly. Now, she knew how wrong the Night Elf was. She simply said, "You will see."

"I only hope that they don't break and run. Collecting a bunch of scared humans is not how I would like to celebrate our victory here."

"They can hold their own."

"Care to lay a wager, Captain Dawnbreeze? Ten Gold coins say that your humans will not be able to hold until we tighten the noose around them."

"You are up for it." Caledra smiled. At least she was going to make some money once the battle was won. She had seen Erich's forces tie down and grind down an entire Forsaken army. Half a hundred Ogres would not be much of a problem for them.

After a few moments, the rest of the sentinels began to bet on the humans. It seemed that Erich's men had pretty steep odds on their success. Four in five Sentinels had decided that the humans would break before they could spring their ambush.

By this time they had almost drawn level with the road. At a single sign from Su'ura, all the chatter stopped. They began to sneak across the moonlit snowy pass, taking care to blend into the surroundings. Caledra followed after Su'ura taking care to make herself as small as possible. Luckily for them, Ogres were not the smartest creatures in the mountains, and they ambled towards the lights of the town and the cries therein.

Caledra breathed. Despite the battle that was about to begin at any moment, the world seemed to be still. For a few moments she watched the snow drift downward and fall on the road. She exhaled and saw her breath rise in a fog. The world was peaceful and quiet. A part of her wanted this moment to last forever.

Then the sounds of clashes and cries of men and ogres rent the silence like a knife through canvas. The night elves began to move at a slow pace, with their bows and arrows in their hands. Caledra did likewise. Battle was about to be joined in a few minutes.

Time would tell if the humans could hold their own long enough to make Caledra richer. She wished that the Half elf Mage was here instead of a ship that was en route to Northrend.

* * *

Ever since humanity started to beat each other with rocks, the concept of scouting and runners has existed in some form on the battlefield. A true army, which fights as a single organic entity instead of a large mob armed with sharp killing implements, has it's different organs. Of these organs, scouts are some of the most important. In the large trackless wastes of troll county, the Kislevites learned that trolls often have some form of low cunning. They would hide in brambles and shallow ravines, waiting for humans to march past close by them before closing the distance with their shuffling, lumbering gait and feasting upon them. The weather and the land seemed to befuddle the people living there.

So the warriors of the Tzarina improvised. Scouts would run at a distance from the moving body of men and sound the alarm if it was necessary. These men were not in a tight formation, but rather the ones with the sharpest ears and eyes. If they saw a troll moving towards them, they would raise the alarm and warn the marching columns of the arrival of trolls. In a way, commanders could even track the movement of foes by seeing which scouts started making it back, and which did not.

So it was with Erich. He knew his scouts well enough to know that they would not engage the ogres, but would break off and run back to the lines at the sight of them. Bravery was not necessary for a scout. Having quick eyes and ears was. Erich stood with his contingent of pikemen at the entrance of the town. Once more he thanked his lucky stars that he had bullied Caledra into getting enough provisions for his men. Their bodies were draped in large woolen cloaks and capes that made fighting out of formation harder. But only the bravest hero – or the biggest idiot – would fight a bunch of Ogres face to face.

He turned to look back at his men. Littorio was holed up inside a house and his men had taken positions on both sides of the street with their crossbows trained outwards and down the road. The elevation meant that they had a clear shot at anything that was marching up the road. It was as good a defensive position as they could get. He only prayed that Littorio could keep his men in check and allow them to fire in volleys. Fifty crossbows firing were a non factor in the battlefield. Fifty of them firing together at the same target would cause any target to flinch, whether it be a creature of chaos or the largest and meanest Orc Warboss.

One by one, the scouts began to return. The first few were the greenest who stumbled in the snow, shrieking about the number of ogres or their size. Erich's face was in his hand. It was one thing to act as a scout in the vanguard, another to scream their numbers and cause panic. The bad weather was putting them all on edge. He had to do something about it and soon.

Sven and Rudi were at the front. The former was busy picking his nose and nodding as Rudi talked about this girl he had seen in Pyrewood. They seemed unconcerned in the face of battle. Erich would have smiled some other time. The lads were veteran soldiers that could easily drop their devices in the middle of battle and hold a pike as straight as a member of the Leopard Company. Rudi would also never abandon his flute, and Sven would never abandon Erich's Standard. He could count on them.

He went and knelt next to them. "How are we doing lads?"

"Not so hot captain." Rudi smiled. Some snot had frozen on his face.

"You have something on your upper lip there Rudi." Sven interjected, finger still in his nose.

"You find your gold there Sven? I thought you Norscans loved the cold." Rudi's smile was now a grin and he wiped his face with the back of his sleeve.

Erich could have let the two continue their banter for hours, but that was not the time for it.

"Lads, the scouts are raising a storm in the lines. Something about too many ogres striding out of the snow. I need the two of you beside me. Rudi, your flute work?"

"Yes it does Erich. I can sing a tune right now that will - "

"Great. Front of the line, with me now. Sven, stop digging. It is grotesque."

The two of them got up, Sven finally finding what he had been looking for and tossing it on the ground. They followed him to the centre of the line. Erich gestured with his head and Sven placed the banner. It fluttered proudly in the wind. A few soldier coughed at the sight. The rumbling footsteps of the ogres was getting closer. Erich whispered to Rudi, "You have your bass." The Rogue from Altdorf smiled.

"Aright lads. Those big blokes over there have been kind enough to provide us with a great bass. Anyone want to sing a song?"

His soldiers stared at him for a moment, confused as to his request. Erich rolled his eyes.

"What, am I slurring or something? Sing me a song!" His men looked at him in amazement.

Erich walked up to the youngest looking one, someone barely out of boyhood trying to grow a moustache. "You there boy. What song can you sing?"

"M-Me? F-F-Farewell my darlin' I went soldierin'" Everyone turned to look at the two of them.

"You better start singing boy, or you are not getting your salary." Erich dropped the soldier. He scrambled up and began to sing loudly.

"That last part about the salary is true for all of you." Erich said as he put on his hat.

The lines burst into the song. The awful silence shattered. After a few moments, the crossbowmen and the scouts joined in the song. It was famous among soldiers and mercenaries who fought in Tilea. The song was about a village rake who bids farewell to his sweetheart to make his fortunes in war. He promises to bring her to bring her treasures from all around the world to lay at her feet. All she has to do is to keep waiting.

In a way the song was bittersweet. Erich knew that after years of soldiering, it would be progressively more difficult to remember the faces of loved ones from where he had started. The only reason why he remembered his father's face clearly was that it stared at him every time he saw his reflection. Maybe the girl he had loved once was still waiting for him in the Pfeildorf Marketplace. Most probably she had married and pumped out a few of her children. Erich could not remember what she even looked like anymore.

Suddenly, he felt that a song like this was a bad idea. When he was fifteen, he would have wept at the concepts the songs explored. Now, he just felt bitter at the wild ride his life had been.

Rodrigo was the last person to run back. He sprinted to Erich, carrying his crossbow and panted. His face was ruddy from the cold that was battering them. "Signor, fifty or so ogres, they are going to crash into our lines momentarily. Their leader seems to have two heads."

Erich processed the information. Two headed Ogres were unheard of in the Old World. "I see. Take your men and move to one of the buildings. I want volley fire, on my mark. Hit as few Ogres as you can. We need to take those fat bastards down one by one."

"It shall be as you command Signor." Then Rodrigo was gone.

One by one the Ogres came into view. The singing stopped. Every soldier turned to look at their foes. Erich shouted at them to brace, and a wall of pikes now blocked the way into Strahnbrad.

The ogres were taller than the largest chaos warrior by a head. Their faces and eyes glittered dully in the moonlight. They rumbled forwards towards the line, their faces empty of any emotion but a cruel smile that seemed pleased to see so many foes opposing them. They wore tiny scraps of cloth that covered their most vulnerable bits and carried hefty clubs as big as a man.

The furthest one saw Erich and shouted an awful yell. Then it began to run towards him, movements much like a child who has seen a new toy to play with. The soldiers froze. In a dozen strides the Ogre had cleared it's comrades and was almost close enough to Erich for him to gag at the smell. He pulled his sword out and wondered if the creature could even feel it.

Deciding against poking it with his sword, he pulled out his pistol and took a careful aim. After a moment, the Nuln-made pistol fired, it's aim true.

The Ogre's single eye exploded in a puddle of gore. It gave a deafening yell and clutched it's face, bashing itself in the shoulder with it's own club. Erich smiled. It seemed ogres here were dumber than those in the old world, two heads and all.

A volley of crossbows caught the brute all over it's face, chest and groin. It fell down like a bag of bricks and moaned piteously for a moment before going still.

Then the rest of the ogres charged. Erich slowly began to slink back among his men. Four rows deep and began to reload. All the running about has warmed him up rather well. He was finished reloading when the first group of ogres ran straight into the pike wall.

A shockwave passed through the braced men. Men at the front and rear of the formation went down as an overwhelming amount of momentum passed through them. More than a few spears dropped to the ground or shattered with the tremendous force of a charge being stopped. The damage done to the Ogres was tenfold.

The brutish beasts had charged straight through the lines in an attempt to awe the defenders. The pike line had held, and nearly all of the momentum had been pushed back upon them. In contrast to the braced lines of the Tileans, the ogres had borne the brunt of the charge upon their rapidly decelerating bodies. The effect had been as spectacular as it was horrifying.

Groups of ogres hung limply on the rows of braced pikes. The first and third row had coincidentally been pointed straight at the loins of the big creatures. The shock from having their nethers impaled had killed the ogres outright. The fourth row and second row had pinned the creatures in their tracks and their thighs and bellies were now distended. Blood and gore turned the snow into a shade of crimson and the baying deathrattle of the first charge of the ogres rent the air. At least a dozen, perhaps a score of Ogres lay dead and dying broken upon the pike line or skewered by crossbow bolts. A ragged cheer went up the line. Erich had forgotten that his men had not fought ogres before. Now they saw that they would be beaten.

Soldiers were trying to free their pikes of the gore. Some of them were picking up their dazed comrades from the snow. It seemed that as far as the defense went, nobody had Erich would have allowed them to take their time, but it would mean that the formation would slowly unravel. Rodrigo had said that there were around fifty of them. Now that their formation was broken, they would be vulnerable to another charge.

"Luigi. Get your boys up here. Relieve us. Pike line behind the pile of ogre corpses. Littorio, Rodrigo, Take up positions inside those houses. I want you to skewer every ogre that is moving with a volley of bolts."

For the next few minutes the entire street was packed with soldiers moving to take their positions. Firstly Erich's line fell back to the fountain, and then Littorio and Rodrigo led their men to better positions overlooking Luigi's pike line. Erich meanwhile stood over the fleshy pile of ogres, looking to the south. Scarcely had Luigi's men begun to form their pike line when Erich raised his hand.

The entire town looked at him attentively. Erich exhaled. Another group of Ogres was ambling towards the town. There must have been twenty in all. When they saw the broken bodies of their kind, their leader, painted and tattooed let out a roar that shook the snow off the roofs. Right before his eyes, the leader casted some form of foul magic, and the ogres grew in size and and speed. Their leader pointed towards Erich and made a crushing motion with it's fist.

The ogres began to run at him with a pace that belied their magically enhanced frames. Erich shot at one of them. The bullet went through an eye. The creature did not even notice it's eye turning to mist, so intent it was on crushing Erich. He clenched his fist and jumped down from the corpse pile.

Part of him knew what was going to happen. A decade and a half ago, he would have knelt down and panicked. Now his instincts were under his control. The world began to slow down as he ran away from the corpse pile. He had been taught well by his diestro masters and rakes on the street of Tilea and Estalia. He could keep a level head in the midst of combat without succumbing to the primal urge to survive that flowed within the heart of every creature, from the lowliest rabbit to the largest Shaggoth.

He knew that the Ogres would barrel through the corpses and charge into the formation. Their size and speed made bracing a largely futile effort. No matter how strongly Luigi resisted the charge, the line would break and men would be overwhelmed by the monsters in close range combat. He needed men to go toe to toe with the ogres when their charge was spent. And he had just the men in reserve.

Hans' men were on their knee near the fountain, right by Erich's contingent. The moonlight fell upon their darkened armour and glinted off the surface of their plate and halberds. They looked lethal in the darkness of the night, illuminated only by the ambient moonlight. A few pale and wan faces from the blacksmiths and engineers looked glumly from the windows. They had heard the shouts of the ogres and seen the soldiers return to their stand in good order. They would doubtless be asking them about the battle.

"Hans. Your boys ready?"

"Sharp as our halberds Altgraf." The gruff Middenlander gave him a smile. The man had taken a shine to Erich ever since his true title had been known. For all their bluster, men of the empire knew to kneel before those that were supposedly their betters.

"Alright, form up. Follow me. The ogres are going to run into Luigi's line face first. Once they stop we are going to chop them up. Five lads to each ogre and we should turn them into Averlander sausage easy." Most men nodded. Erich checked his pistol again and pulled out his sword. This was going to be heavy work.

The halberdiers stood up, almost all at once. A few of them tightened their helmets and they looked at Erich to lead the way. They did not have to wait. The ground itself was trembling as the ogres began to charge into the town. It was a scene from a play, only all too real.

Erich pulled out his sword and exhaled. As the air moved in his lungs, the world began to slow down again. This was it. The ogres began to charge at Luigi's line and Erich raised his sword. The halberdiers began to advance with him at their head. The battle of Strahnbrad had reached it's tipping point.

* * *

Serra stood on the deck of a ship, taking in the moonlit night. Erich had been right. The nights on Azeroth seemed like a welcome reprieve from the Old World. Without any tempestuous winds of magic blowing or the glare of Morrslieb staring at her, the nights seemed incredibly peaceful in contrast with her life so far. Even Ulthuan had never been safe from the glare of the evil moon. It had always leered at the denizens of the world like a tumour in the sky, ever changing, sometimes as big as the Mannslieb, and sometimes nothing more than an evil star in the sky. But it always was present, whispering in the minds of mortals, especially those who were gifted at magic. In contrast, the nights on Azeroth were serene.

Serra spent the hours after lunch meditating. Her two companions – the gnome named Peggy Cogwhistle and Dana Daniels had managed to move into the same cabin as her. While she enjoyed talking to them, she spent an enormous amount of time meditating. Her life as a Mage of the White Tower had taught her how to handle the whispers of the beings that pervaded the minds of the denizens of Azeroth.

They called themselves the Old Gods, and said that their hour of freedom was at hand. The earth itself would be turned to their bidding and the elements would dance to their tune. Those that were against them would be sacrificed. Serra would have laughed at them. The Chaos Gods whispered far more personalised bribes to powerful entities in the old world. Those that fell – like the Druchii or the humans who lived under the shadows of the Gates in the north – soon became slaves and vessels to the dark gods. This was the price of Order and Freedom. High Elves, and those who stood on the side of order learned that lesson the hard way. She had mocked the Old gods, and they had whispered in their slimy tentacled voice that their servants were coming to take her away. They would be on her ship soon, they promised her.

As it was, after a month of sailing, her companions had gotten used to her. While she often heard someone else on the ship calling her a half elf, she had requested her companions to not do the same. They had been kind enough to oblige. It had been kind of them. While Serra liked their companionship, she would eventually turn them into frogs or toads if they kept calling her a halfbreed. She was from the Line of the Lords and Ladies of Cothique. In the centuries past, they had been more powerful in the Politics of Ulthuan. With the trade with both the New and the Old World, their stock had fallen, but the sailors of Cothique were second to none. Let the Sea Guard sail the ships of Lothern. The knights of Lothern fought on their Horses while at Sea. It was their power that surprised countless longships of Norscan Marauders and Dark Elven vessels that prowled the Enchanted Sea looking to invade Ulthuan.

Today, her companions had decided to look at the stars and teach her the basics of Astronomy in Azeroth. Serra had to admit. Plotting their route with the aid of the stars would be handy. Fieldwork might be frowned upon in the airy studies of the White Tower, but in the real world, she might never know when it would come handy. Ever since Aenerion, elven explorers had gone around the world with only lodestones, the stars and a handy amount of magic to guide them.

After a few hours of attempts to use the stars, Serra had realised that her companions were far worse than her when it came to plotting a course with the help of the stars. Right now the three of them were enjoying beers on the ship's railing, watching the waves swirl below them. Eventually Peggy and Dana, too drunk to stand on the deck bid their goodbyes and went back to bed. Serra stayed up for a while enjoying the peace and tranquillity For the first time in a long time, She was content with what life had offered her. She turned to return to her quarters.

As she retreated from the deck, her senses picked up a sound of the water softly parting. It was followed by a soft and slow slither as though something was rising from the water and onto the ship, almost impossible to hear over the din of the top deck. Remembering what had happened the last time Serra was on a ship like this, she slowly walked back to her quarters to retrieve her staff.

Her room was a mess. Dana and Peggy were asleep. The world seemed to be at peace inside and out. Maybe, just maybe Serra was a tad too twitchy from the drink. It would be a good idea to sleep off the beer.

A scream from above deck pierced the silence of the starlit night. She picked up her staff and placed her circlet on her brow. More screams, yells and bellows followed.

Serra walked up to the deck and saw that it was now filled with slimy, crawling mutants dredged up from the bottom of the ocean. Unlike those on the bretonnian cogs, they were large, and their bodies were a terrifying mix of humanoid and snakelike appearances. Their Dark kin often left their sorceresses to the ravaging embrace of Stormfels and transformed them into snakelike creatures to do the god's bloody bidding. It would seem that a host of Medusae had sprung up from the depths to take down the ship. Some things never changed.

The poop deck was a mixture of bodies, mostly human, with some of the snakelike creatures thrown in. Serra burned the nearest one, a hulking beast with a snakelike head and bulging muscles, and froze the next one solid. It seemed that magic here responded to a force of will far more readily than Ulthuan or anywhere in the Old World. Her instincts, so finely honed to safeguard her in the tempestuous swirls of the Winds of Magic could be unleashed to their uttermost. Every spell she thought of actively was stronger when it was cast. Power in Azeroth was maddeningly potent.

She unleashed a barrage of magic, quenching the souls of the unfortunate mutated creatures that were in her path. A small squad of soldiers still held their own, losing ground near the captain's wheel and were about to be overwhelmed when Serra started to cast her magic. They stared at her awestruck by the awesome power of her magic. One of them, a human mage had his jaw so open that she could see his tonsils. Compared to her, his magical potential was minuscule. Serra probably had more magic in her pinky toes than the poor fool would command in his lifetime.

It was a funny thing about instincts. If Serra had measured the time, a few moments would have passed between the time she lit the first snake on fire and the time when the last one of them, a female mage with six arms crumbled to dust, but for Serra, each moment was long as an hour. It was certainly quite a rush. She had never been in a battle like this before.

For the next few minutes, she stood on the poopdeck's railing casting spells, fortifying allies, weakening foes and destroying them with minor spells. She still remembered what she had done to the bretonnian cog. Magic's true test was in it's subtlety. Wood would burn but assaults on the spirits of living beings would not harm the materials on the ship.

Serra did not even think about casting more flamboyant spells. Instead she focused on quenching the souls of the snakelike elves. A few of their mages tried to target her, but she blocked their attack with contemptuous ease. In the midst of all this madness, a silence fell on the battlefield. Both human and inhuman beings looked at her standing on the railing of the ship, dissipating the enemy's strongest magic with a flick of her fingers. Her staff glowed brightly during the entire combat, lending her strength and being a point of focus for her spells. Serra's eyes glowed with arcane, taking on a sparkling blue-gold flame when it interacted with the bit of power that Asuryan had put in her being. This was intoxicating. Here, if she wanted, she would be a god.

When her battle rage wore off, she surveyed the deck of the ship. The sounds of the battle had drawn soldiers from below deck. Everyone, including Dana and Peggy – who looked bedraggled – stared at her as if struck by lightning.

Only a small group of the snakelike beings now seemed to be in any sort of fighting condition. They were more elaborately armed than the rest, with an armour seemingly made from coral and chitin covering their torsos. Their giant Harpoon like weapons were bigger than their smaller brethren. The mages – who were all female - were busy chanting an incantation in a tongue that was vaguely similar to Thalassian, but the words slipped and slithered like the hisses of a snake.

Then a Gigantic head of a snake rose from the bottom of the ocean, latching on to the golden prow of the ship. Then another, and another. They moved in tandem as though the giant snakes had a single overriding intelligence directing it. Serra realised what that creature was. It was a deep sea Hydra, something that the Druchii used to ensure their supremacy against their foes.

The leader of the snakelike creatures coiled her tail and sprang up on top of one of the heads. She turned to look at the entire ship's length and pointed to Serra. In a past life, she must have been regal and beautiful. However the mutation of the old gods had turned her into the monstrous creature she was now. Serra felt a pang of pity for her. What kind of twisted power had her ancestors bargained for that had led to the birth this poor creature, she wondered.

"Ssslay the half-breed." the snake-witch shouted, pointing towards Serra. Her minions and hydra screamed, their voices deafening to everyone. The hydra reared up over the ship, its' body fully visible.

Any empathy Serra had for her vanished. Subtlety be damned. She had been pushed around long enough by the pathetic inhabitants of this world. They called a Daughter of Ulthuan a filthy Half-breed. Her anger, had been slowly boiling over ever since she had met Caledra Dawnbreeze who had impudently called her a half-elf. This snake haired bitch was about to taste the full fury of a Mage of the High Tower.

Focusing her anger, Serra made a series of complex hand gestures. The Crystal on her staff glowed a bright orange, the colour of Ashqy and the winds of Pyromancy. Summoning the boiling blood of Hukon she raised a palm directed at the prow of the ship.

A wave of fire erupted from her palm and spread forward in a straight line. After some distance it took the shape of a grinning and burning skull, and moved ahead with a speed that was breathtaking.

The warriors moved to protect their mages but their attempts were in vain. The flaming skull burned through their magical wards and roasted them alive in their own armour. The mages were even less fortunate. Their icy wards melted before the furious onslaught of Serra's magic and the fury of the flames vaporised them instantaneously. The skull then struck the hydra's torso, burning it's slimy scaly skin and setting it alight. With a roar it sank downwards, the flames unquenchable even by the sea water. It was a suitably horrible fate for the beast and the one that rode it.

Serra turned to look at the assembled crew and soldiers on the ship. The final discharge of magic smouldered out of her eyes as she let go of all the excess magic she wielded. Everyone else was too awestruck to even respond to the display of arcane might Serra had put on.

"Do not call me half-breed." she said, and got down from the railing.

* * *

 ** _guest, the night elves were supposed to be a little distrustful of outsiders. Something blizzard frequently forgets in their storytelling. They can still be valuable members of the Alliance while still being distrustful of strange foreign mercenaries running around with short eared elves._**

 _ **Machcia, I wanna take a crack at writing such a story once I am done with this. But yeah, warhammer is the GrimDark setting in contrast to more topical settings like Warcraft.**_

 _ **Guest, thank you for the kind words.**_

 _ **CaptnDetergent, thanks for spotting the 'Ah 1yes'. High elves refer to the elves as the eldest race, and the dwarfs as the elder race. Other races are younger for them because when elves and dwarfs discovered each other before the war of the beard, humans - halflings and ogres were not in the picture. And the interpretation of Alterac is what Erich is making out from Caledra's report. It might be a little biased. He is about to get a new perspective soon**_

 _ **TheIronSnake, I suppose I did not make it clear. Murlocs attacked all the ships. Serra just blew Tristan's flagship up with her magic. They have a small part to play yet. More on that later.**_

 _ **AkashicRecords, I am glad you are liking the story. One thing I did not like about fanfiction regarding warhammer/warcraft crossovers was that  
A 40k would be more popular.  
B Even when fantasy battles stories are written, WHFB gets the short end of the stick because people are more at home with warcraft's lore.**_

 _ **And I hope everyone on the ship knows what Serra will do to them if they call her a half-elf to her face.**_


	21. Chapter 21

**Convalescence**

* * *

 _The cries of the dead and dying filled the air. They screamed piteously and begged their captors for mercy, and in response were mutilated. The servants of the Dark Gods were not known for their humane behaviour. The entire sight unfolding before Erich was something born of a dark nightmare that seemed too grotesque to be real. A few men around him shouted and swore angrily, but largely were silent. The atrocities unfolding before their eyes had struck them dumb. The norscans might be brute savages but the one thing they excelled at was terror. Entire armies would break from their war cries alone. Thankfully, his men were hardened enough to not break and run from the shouts of the norscans. If only he could have said the same about the Bretonnian infantry who they had the misfortune of fighting alongside._

 _Ever since the Bretonnian Duke and his household Knights had been struck down by the hulking forms of the Warriors of Chaos, the battle had turned sour for Erich and his men. Bretonnians scorned tactics that were more involved than a wild headlong charge that broke the enemy line while the infantry was supposed to do all the dying. While doubtless effective against goblins, orcs and beastmen, when someone with the slightest bit of intelligence fought against the bretonnians, it often ended with the flower of Bretonnia becoming food for the worms. Erich had tried to warn them, but after being called a peasant half a hundred times in the span of half an hour, he had agreed to whatever harebrained idea the Duke of Brionne had come up with just to get away from the man's garlic encrusted presence._

 _They had managed to hold their flank and beat back the Norscan Shield Wall thrice inflicting heavy losses on the savage northemen. Now even as they slowly gave ground and retreated in the direction of Brionne, their sights were assailed with the grisly sight before them. The Norscans had sent their cavalry to pursue the routing troops and were massacring them while chanting praise to their Dark Gods. A blasphemous altar to the Ruinous powers had been raised that blocked the way back to brionne. Dozens of prisoners were dragged to the altar and sacrificed as the norscans chanted their bloody war cries to their gods._

 _Erich's frame trembled as the Norscan riders and their wolfhounds tore apart several prisoners darkening the pleasant and green grass with bloody gore. He felt like he was going to vomit. Erich had fought in enough battles before, and as far as his first battle as captain went, it seemed like he had done his part in the battle extremely well. A Southlander Pike wall was all but impossible for the Norscans to break in a charge. Their charge worked against them when they faced several layers of overlapping pikes that skewered them with their own momentum._

 _Not that the Norscans would try and stop. When their outriders saw Erich's men, they let out a wild whoop and began to assemble for a fight against an organised foe. Several Wolfhounds and Horsemen remained to keep brutalising their prisoners, slaughtering bretonnians – both noble and base-born – as sacrifices to the ruinous powers of Chaos and improve their standing in their eyes._

 _His men slowly began lowering their pikes as the wolves began to close in. Erich drew his pistol and clutched his father's sword, taking comfort in it's light and familiar hilt. He pointed the Nuln-made weapon, a marvel of human ingenuity, at the marauder with the most elaborate armour – a mix of chain mail and imperial plate swaddled in a cloak made from human skin and waited. He would fire when he saw the whites of the bastard's eyes. At that distance the shot would penetrate the most, going straight through the plate and into the marauder's black heart._

 _A voice from his left – Hans, younger and less grizzled – said urgently. "Erich." He ignored it. The bastards were upon them, and Erich did not want to miss the shot. A hand on his shoulder threw him off balance. The voice was even more urgent. "Erich!"_

" _What" Erich said, turning to look at Hans._

 _An old grizzled man looked at him, strangely clear in a sea of foggy and dim faces. He said._

" _Erich wake up."_

* * *

Erich woke up with a start, panting rapidly. The room he woke up in was unrecognisable for a moment. Then he remembered. He was at a room in the Strahnbrad 'tavern' and the roof had been newly laid by the dwarfs right before Rodrigo had raised the alarm on approaching Ogres. It seemed that he had been give a comfortable bed in a warm room, although he could not remember being in it before. Erich was crowded by half a dozen faces, some more familiar than the others. All his Sergeants – Hans, Luigi, Littorio, and Rodrigo were here, along with a dwarf and a halfling – or as they preferred to be called - a gnome.

The right side of his face felt wet and clammy. It would not take a burgomeister to figure out that he had been drooling in his sleep. His entire body hurt badly. He noticed that he had been bandaged thoroughly underneath his shirt. The cloth clung tightly to his body, almost as a second layer of skin, and felt oddly pleasant. Whatever the material was, it certainly was not bleached linen, a cheap cloth that was often the material of choice for the priests and priestesses of Shallya, the goddess of mercy and healing.

"W-what's going on here? What are you doing here?"

"We came to check up on you Capitan." Littorio offered unhelpfully.

"What do you mean?"

The group looked at each other with a little bit of concern. "Eh, Capitan, you have been convalescing for an entire week since the battle with the ogres."

It was Erich's turn to look blankly at his Sergeants. His first thought was to assume that they were playing an elaborate prank on him. Being garrisoned in the cold with nothing much to do often led to men becoming more idle and finding creative ways to pass the time. Normally it would only be someone trying to use charcoal to draw crude drawing on faces, but he could certainly not put it past them to play something more involved. He kept looking at their faces for a minute or more, noting that their expressions were not changing. Erich looked intently for twitches in their face, a hint of a smile, anything to suggest that the punchline was about to be delivered.

It never came. It would seem that they were deadly serious.

"An entire week?" Erich asked stunned at the relevation.

Luigi nodded. "Well not exactly, you would awake from time to time, but were unable to speak. We thought the ogre's weight had squashed your voice out of your body. The Night Elves insisted that you needed rest for their magic to work and kept putting you to sleep."

Suddenly the entire memory of the Halberdier's charge came back to Erich. Luigi's contingent had been flattened by the Ogres, and had Erich not charged in with the halberds when he did, he did not doubt that the brutes would have done a number on his men. Those things towered over men – larger that even the biggest Champion of Chaos that Erich had ever faced and were made of an obscene amount of fat and muscle. He had no doubt that those clubs, primitive as they were would squash an armoured knight – horse and all – into pulp if they connected.

As it was, the charge of the Halberdiers had taken the embattled Ogres in the flank. Surrounded and trapped by Erich's men, the creatures had been cut down in a matter of minutes. Full of fat and muscle they might be, the sharp edge of the halberds was more than a match for their obnoxious size and girth. Hans' men, practised at swinging their weapons with years of practice cut down the ogres systematically, like farmers cutting wheat during harvest time.

First they went for the knees or the ankles. Once their tendons were cut, their size availed them little, as the brutes went down under the mass of their own bodies at a breathtaking pace. In a fight like this, Erich knew he was next to useless. There would be no way he could think of duelling with one of these creatures. In contrast, Hans wielded his ornate halberd like a champion, hewing down an ogre and moving to the next one before the last one fell.

Then Hans had settled on a blue ogre. Unlike the others, it seemed to have some sort of crude intelligence, and had daubed it's face with war paint. In a gaggle of savage monsters, it looked like the most savage one of them all, and it's two faces leered at Erich and Hans with a malevolence that was strikingly clever.

It seemed to figure out that Erich was the leader of the group, and an outstretched hand – as wide as Erich – reached out to grasp and crush him. Meanwhile it tried to wave Hans away with a club. That left no doubt to the creature's intelligence. It would seem that two heads were certainly better than one for an ogre. However, the brutal creature had not fought soldiers who fought in disciplined formations in the heart of the fiercest battle.

Even as it's outstretched hand reached toward Erich, half a dozen Halberdiers and a similar number of pikemen hacked at it's legs, calves and groin. Focused and bent over as it was on it's task of grasping Erich, the creature's knees bucked and it fell down, it's outstretched palm falling squarely over Erich. The last thing he remembered was a burst of pain all over his body, and then the world going dark.

It seemed that their story checked out. Erich had to admit, being swatted like a fly by an aberrant ogre in it's death throes was certainly unique. If he ever retired, he would be sure to mention it in his memoirs.

"Any casualties?"He asked, forcing his mind to the present.

Luigi grinned. "A few of the boys were all shook and a couple of them will be limping for a fortnight, but we all made it through."

That was certainly pleasant news. Burying or burning corpses in the cold was certainly not something Erich was looking forward to do. Although he had to wonder how his men had managed to survive after being tossed into the air by ogres.

"It was the snow, Capitan." Rodrigo answered to his question. It was piled up enough that it cushioned most of the fall. We were very lucky."

Erich was about to get up when he grimaced. His body was still hurting at the slightest movement. It was an unpleasant sensation. He had long been smug about his propensity to take little damage in battle, attributing it to divine favour, fortune, or skill. It would seem that skill was of little use when faced with an outstretched ogre palm, fortune was unreliable and his divine favour had run out. Erich supposed that he hadn't been keeping Myrmidia in his thoughts unless it was to swear. Maybe he should take some time to pray to her again whenever he could. The goddess might encourage her followers to take action instead of inundating her with prayers, but the Daughter of Morr needed to be appeased and worshipped nonetheless. He made to get up once again, but the pain was still unbearable.

"How badly was I hurt?" He asked – to no one in particular.

"You broke multiple bones, nearly all of your ribs and your skull when the Ogre-mage swatted you." A woman's voice, beautiful and melodious to hear, answered. Erich craned his neck to see who the newcomer was.

It was Caledra, wearing a warm, fur lined mantle that covered her body. Alongside stood the leader of the Night Elf Sentinels, Lady Dreamsorrow in a cloak made of what seemed like forest leaves that shimmered in the light. Her face was as impassive as ever, but without her helmet, Erich could take in her face. Like the rest of her kind, her body was a hue of purple and her full lips, elaborate hair and slightly more composed bearing made her look like a noble born commander of soldiers, not too different from the Empire. Behind them stood the night elf sentinels.

Their beauty was not diminished by the fact that they towered over everyone else in the room, although it was far more statuesque than living. Erich noted that the way they wore their clothes was rather mesmerising. The slightest bits of cloth covered their breasts and groins, allowing Erich to bask in the nearly full glory of their toned and shapely figures. Their bodies were the wonderful and intoxicating mixture of warrior's lethality and feminine grace. The way their hips were shaped or how their breasts struggled to break free of their leather prisons left no doubt of that. All of them carried a large recurved bows, longer than Erich and a quiver full of arrows on their backs. Their belt held short swords or dirks.

In the sunlight bathing the room, these warrior women reminded Erich of Myrmidia in some strange fashion. The Estalians would have made Erich eat his liver for that claim, but thankfully, he was far away from them as could be possible. Myrmidia was the goddess of both the highest peak of civilisation and of warfare. Unlike Ulric, to her warfare was not about battle lust, but about the usage of the finest part of the human body – the brain. Followers of Myrmidia were encouraged to keep an open mind, and keep the torch of civilisation burning, while the followers of other gods gave in to increasingly brutal pressures of order in a world that fought increasingly desperately against chaos. These women seemed to be aspects of Myrmida in the flesh, incredibly beautiful, and incredibly dangerous.

Caledra spoke, breaking Erich out of his theological quandries. "Gentlemen, you know the drill. Everyone leaves." Erich's sergeants bid him farewell and started to leave. In contrast to the night elves who were gathered at the door, they looked like schoolboys who had been caught by the matron and ordered to stand outside the room as punishment. It was a whimsical sight that brought a laugh to Erich's lips. The pain that followed reminded him of the state he was currently in due to his negligence.

He was alone in the room, now filled with seven elves, one of them somewhat more familiar, with hair the colour of the sun, and skin paler than his own. Erich did not know what to say. Apparently, neither did any of the elves. One of them whispered to her leader and she whispered something back in that sing-song voice that they used. He just stared at them.

Caledra, once more came to the rescue. "They are here to change your bandages," she said, as a means of explanation. "We have been doing that ever since your bald friend carried you inside."

"All seven of you?" Erich said. It was a genuine question. As far as he saw the Night Elves, two of them would easily overpower him, strip him naked and change his bandages without any serious problem.

Lady Swiftarrow translated for the benefit of her companions. One of them, with a shade of purple that was pink for all practical purposes smiled coyly and said something in return. Lady Swiftarrow graciously said. "Melina says that you fought off four of them in your weakened state, so we had to sit over you while we changed your bandages."

"Oh, I see." Erich suddenly felt his face grow warmer. He had quite literally been pinned down by several beautiful women, stripped bare to his skin and had them gently caress his broken and feverish body and then bandaged every night for the last week. Worst of all, he had no memory of this at all. "I am sorry." He finished saying lamely.

Caledra translated. Melina smiled and said something in her language. Once more, Caledra translated, "Don't be. You have all the instincts of a warrior. It was quite the pleasant challenge. Bandaging a raving human I mean, not sitting on you." The Night elf smiled as Caledra finished talking.

Five years ago, Erich would have whistled at this conversation. Now he just felt awkward when his blush subsided. He had managed to get swatted by an ogre with bodypaint. Other mercenary captains would have laughed at his current state. During the long reign of bloody wars in Tilea, he doubted any mercenary captain had actually been crushed under an ogre's fist the same way he had been. Rebellious princes would often be fed to ogres, but that was completely different in both intent and execution.

Pushing thoughts like that out of his mind, Erich began to take off his shirt. Each movement of his hand and shoulder felt stiff and disjointed. The pain stabbed him in semi-regular intervals, almost vanishing – then reappearing in full force. He wondered how badly he was actually injured. Too much pain was supposed to be a good thing according to Doktors. It meant that his body was healing and his humours were supposed to be balancing themselves with extreme prejudice. It also felt like his body was on fire. Erich almost fainted by the time he took off his shirt. Coloured spots danced before his eyes, and he wanted to retch.

The Night elves moved in immediately as he finished taking his shirt off. One of them used her dirk to cut off his bandages at his shoulder. Despite her deft hands, Erich could not help but grunt in pain as the flat of the blade touched his shoulder. He felt as weak as a kitten. This was terrible, both physically and mentally. A mercenary who flinched at physical contact might as well be a Bretonnian noble fighting on foot. As rare and exotic as an unicorn, and not in a good way.

After a few minutes of closing his eyes and bearing through the pain as stoically as possible he was at the end of his tether. Just as he was about to cry out, Melina said something softly and he opened his eyes. His bandages were lying on the bed, torn and filled with dry blood and pus. The smell coming from it was terrible. Erich almost gagged on the smell. While he had waded through battlefields filled with worse, in his weakened state this was all he could bear. He felt disgusted with himself.

His body, once largely smooth and uninjured was now looked like a bruise, all black and blue. A few bare patches of mercifully uninjured muscle and skin stood out as curious oddities. Underneath every fold of muscle and fat was the faint ooze of still leaking pus. The abominable liquid caught the glare of the noon day sun and glittered in a manner most disgusting. It was the colour of golden cream. The child in him wanted to poke and prod it.

Another elf came in with a fresh set of bandages and began wrapping those around his torso. Erich flinched when the soft cloth first came in contact with his body. The elf stopped and twitched her ears – looking at him intently. After a moment he gritted his teeth and nodded. For the next few minutes all his focus on suppressing his pain as the Sentinel kept wrapping the bandage tightly around him. Erich found the texture of the bandage to be surprisingly nice and soothing. It's texture alone on his wounds imparted a sense of calm on him that he found surprisingly pleasant.

"What are these bandages made of?" He asked the elves gathered in the room.

"Mooncloth. Why do you ask?" Lady Swiftarrow replied.

"These feel great. They seem to take the pain away by themselves. Have you soaked them in some medicine?" The fresh bandages did seem to take the pain away by a little. Erich suddenly found that he could move his hands and fingers without too much pain in general.

He stood up as curiosity got the better of him. There was no doubt that the bandage had some potent form of medicine on it. It took nearly all his pain away. Half an hour ago, talking and moving his neck made him weak and tired. Now his body felt oddly pleasant, as if he had just warmed up.

The Night elves looked at him with a mixture of fright and awe. Erich meanwhile grabbed his shirt and flexed his muscles. He felt like a person reborn. Every muscle in his body responded to him, his nerves afire with the anticipation of movement. The terrible bruises on his body seemed to have all but disappeared. This was magnificent. In a few minutes, he had put on his wool overshirt, grabbed a cloak and ran out of the room.

* * *

Caledra stared dumbly at the retreating figure of the human. All throughout the week he had been feverish and weak, requiring the presence of multiple sentinels just to wrestle him in position and bandage him. Before Druid Moonclaw had begun to heal him, he had insisted on setting his bones in the right place. It had taken them two days just to get his body back in proper shape. Caledra, directing the Sentinels had done a good job of it. All the while Erich's life hung in the balance. At certain times, his breathing was so shallow and laboured Caledra wondered if he was about to die in front of her. At other times his heart beat so loudly that she and the Sentinels, their ears honed to the lightest sounds could hear it's rhythmic thumping as clearly as the conversation they were having.

After Druid Moonclaw had cast his spells on Erich, the human's body reacted strongly to the magic. His body began to heal at a rapid rate. Bones that should have remained permanently broken began to reknit themselves at a blistering pace. A side result of all this was the raving fever that the human had suffered from. For the last five days, he had been feverish, and Caledra and Su'ura had decided to leave Erich alone, only entering his room to change his dressings and to bring his food. Thankfully for them, the disease was not contagious.

According to Druid Moonclaw, now that the human's body was regenerating rapidly, his body required a large source of energy to fight off the diseases that would attack it. It was doing that by being feverish. Once his body was sufficiently healed, the fever would break on it's own. While sound in theory, Caledra had felt bad for the raving human who attacked her and the sentinels with the strength of a fel orc. His grey eyes opened wide and stared at her without any memory of her, and he flailed his arms about trying to keep them away from his body. She had been wrong about Erich, and Su'ura was right. He did have a warrior's instinct. It was just that he suppressed it and it had only surfaced only when his fever had taken his wits away.

It seemed that the fever had broken this morning. His face seemed a little less flushed than before -

although it was hard to tell with all the bruises all over his face – and he seemed to have found his biting sense of humour back. In a way Caledra was relieved that the person she had been working with for the last few months had come back to normal.

She made to follow him when Su'ura laid a hand on her shoulders. "We need to meet Moonclaw now." was all she said.

Normally Caledra would have argued. The human was still weak and might pass out in the snow, or might fall off the stairs and break his bones once more. But the veteran Sentinel's face was a mask of worry. She doubted that Su'ura was worried about the human.

Druid Moonclaw's room was well furnished with an alchemist's table. The venerable druid was seated there at a table where bloodthistle and peacebloom bubbled merrily, filling the room with the scent of distillates and potions. Caledra knew that alchemy was often used by adventurers and travellers to keep their bodies and magic intact. A potion of Health more often than not would be the difference between victory and death. She however was surprised to see a senior druid of the talon dabbling in the science of Alchemy. She had always figured that the Kal'dorei society might not be amenable to Alchemy. To see a druid of Moonclaw's stature busily mashing herbs while stewing others was homely and oddly endearing. It reminded her of better times in Quel'Thalas and her Farstrider's lodge.

"Oh, hello. I did not see you two entering my room. What brings Lady Swiftarrow and Captain Dawnbreeze to my humble abode." The druid never took off his mantle of Hyjal leaves. His crown of Antlers and branches however was on his bed. Caledra noticed that the man had dark blue hair, neatly braided underneath the crown.

It was Su'ura who replied to the question. "Druid Moonclaw. I have news of your patient. The human's fever seems to have broken and he left his room just a few moments ago."

"Hmm, I see. Some fresh air outside would certainly help him convalesce better. Make sure he does not get into fights too often for a week and he should be as good as he was before." The druid said, before continuing to mash his potions while muttering to himself. After a moment, he conceded, "That human must have a constitution of Truesilver. Imagine having your body crushed by an ogre and then getting back up in a week. The fever should have had him debilitated for a fortnight more."

Su'ura once more interrupted the druid's train of thoughts. "Moonclaw. We had run out of silk bandages after you began to heal the human so we had to wrap him up in mooncloth."

The druid's reaction was to drop the vial he was concocting. It hit the ground and shattered, spilling the blood red potion on the wooden floor of his room. In the haze of the alchemical fires that lit the room, it looked bizarre and grotesque. It reminded Caledra of the Oozes in the Aerie Peaks and the Wetlands – barely conscious globs of elements that only lived for a desire to consume any living creature that crossed their path.

"I see. And he had no adverse reaction to it?"

"No, on the contrary he likes their texture and was asking us about it. It seems to dull the pain in his body."

"How decidedly odd. I think we should write to the Temple in Darnassus about it. They would love to know more about this. I have never heard of humans feeling _better_ after touching mooncloth."

Both of them then turned to look at Caledra. "Where did you say this human was from?" Su'ura asked.

"He said they set sail somewhere from the east when they got shipwrecked off the coast of Southshore. They stumbled upon Southshore around the same time the forsaken were going to assault it and then crushed them. After they razed Southshore we hired them as we were in desperate need of veteran warriors and they seemed to hold themselves up well."

"Out east, from the Forbidding sea?" Druid Moonclaw's eyes widened. "The sea is impossible to navigate by boat. Even at the height of the Kal'dorei, when our people were united did we never think of exploring the eastern seas. Dreadful monsters and unknown horrors were known to swallow off our boats when we went far enough from the shores of the world." The druid collapsed back on his chair and exhaled. It was a long drawn sighing sound. Finally, he asked a question of Su'ura. "How did the human respond to the mooncloth."

"Initially, it was similar to how humans react everywhere. While I could not see the euphoria firsthand, I thought his maddened flailing was a result of the mooncloth's energies seeping into his body. I found it strange that he kept his instincts throughout the entire time his fever raged." Su'ura leaned back on the wall and sighed. Then her eyes widened, "Oh, how could I overlook that?"

"Overlook what?" It was Caledra's turn to question.

"Humans, Orcs, Dwarfs – basically anyone who is not an elf reacts badly to the power of the moonwells. They have a high sense of euphoria even as their bodies begin to dessicate from the divine grace of the goddess. Slowly their reason begins to strip away and eventually they waste away and die. We swaddled Erich in Mooncloth bandages once the Silk ones had run out. Today was to be the second day we bandaged him in mooncloth."

"What did you see when you took off his dressings Su'ura?" The druid's tone was inquisitive and his voice firm.

"The day before yesterday, when he was lost in his fever, we stripped him and saw his wounds. His body was a mangled mess. We straightened the bones and wrapped him up in Mooncloth, hoping that he would not turn fey due to it's properties. Today, his body was all but healed and his fever had broken. He seemed – far more lucid than he had been throughout the entire week."

Caledra immediately interjected. "He was back to normal. Yesterday he was a strong breeze away from death. Today he is up and about – looking for his subordinates and asking them about the casualties sustained in the battle."

"I see. I suppose this is nothing short of a miracle. At first the human took the entire brunt of an ogre magi's fist without dying outright. Then after a day of swaddling himself in mooncloth, the human returns back to normal. This is all very interesting."

Caledra hesitated for a moment and then asked. "Pardon me, what exactly is mooncloth."

Both of the night elves paused and turned to look at Caledra. "You know of our shared heritage right Captain Dawnbreeze?" Druid Moonclaw asked her.

Caledra nodded faintly.

"There were others, left in the lands of Kalimdor. Once they had been proud elves who revelled in magic, much like your ancestors. To them, a deal with the legion was just an agreement to find an exciting new source of power. Xavius was their leader." Druid moonclaw's voice had turned sombre.

"Once the legion was defeated, they hid themselves in the deepest and darkest parts of Ashenvale and Felwood that they could find. Throughout the long vigilance of the Sentinels, we have fought with our corrupted and demonic kin in a war beneath the gaze of Mount Hyjal and Nordrassil. There is no love lost between our two people. What they do to captured sentinels makes my skin crawl, and what we do to the Satyrs in return is nothing but retribution for their sins against the world." Caledra had never seen Su'ura speak with such vehemence on any subject. Her fury scared the high elf a little.

"The cloth they wear, though tainted and warped by their foul demonic presence was once the finest silk and cloth our civilisation produced during it's golden age. Whenever we can, we try to collect as much of this Fel cloth as we can. Then, we take it to the moonwells, and let it soak in the goddess' radiance. Her blessing purifies the cloth, and imbues it with her essence. In a way, mooncloth is one of the few ways we can restore small scraps of our ancient legacy and glory as the Night Elves, who once ruled the world." Druid Moonclaw now sounded wistful.

"Mooncloth is good for our kind, and by extensions both the high elves and your fel drinking brothers and sisters."

"For everyone else, it is an euphoric and dangerous drug. The arcane nature of Elune's blessing burns through their bodies and destroys vital organs even as their brains crave for more of the cloth's touch. Which is why the human actually recovering is something anomalous, and needs to be catalogued and studied further."

"The other person the human spoke to, she was a half elf wasn't she?" Su'ura asked.

Caledra nodded. "I don't think she likes being called that."

"Well her opinions do not matter. If this Erich Von Peiper has elven blood in him, it would mean that his body would be able to absorb the power of the Goddess." Su'ura smiled. "There. I solved you problem. Erich Von Peiper clearly has elven blood flowing through his veins."

Druid Moonclaw let out a deep breath, feeling exhausted. His ears drooped a little, and the entire effect was rather comical."Why do you always do this Su'ura?" He said with a pained expression, "I thought I had something unique and interesting to share with the rest of the Temple and even the Cenarion Circle."

"Well someone has to look out for you. While you are soaring ever higher on your wings, some of us have to keep the nest clear and neat. Only for you to drop in and take credit at the last moment." Su'ura smirked in answer to his question.

"Is this about Hyjal again? I keep telling you, I saw you were in danger and I panicked. It had been a long time since the last time I saw you, and I could not bear the thought of you being in danger." He sounded earnest.

In response, Su'ura stopped leaning on the wall and walked up to him. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she whispered something in Moonclaw's ear. "I know."

From the way his body relaxed, Caledra realised that she was trespassing on a moment that was supposed to be between the two night elves. She slowly began to back out of the room. She was about to head out of the door when the Druid's sibilant tones came back, directed at her.

"Oh Captain Dawnbreeze, do make sure that the human is alright. We utilised a large part of our Mooncloth in his treatment."

Caledra could not help but ask something as she began to leave. "You said that you had not seen Lady Swiftarrow for a long time before the battle of Mount Hyjal. When was the last time you two had met?"

The two of them turned to face her, their faces next to each other.

"When Nordrassil was planted." Su'ura said

"That was when your ancestors were Kal'dorei." Moonclaw completed her train of thoughts.

Caledra softly closed the door and left the two lovers alone.

* * *

 _ **Aburg76, ah yes. I tried showing Serra off as arrogant and high headed, as all proper high elves are supposed to be. Calling her a halfbreed would be a bad call for anyone. Especially if that certain someone was a snake trying to kill her.**_

 _ **Solarblaster, yeah, pretty much. I will be writing more chapters from Serra's point of view in Northrend rather soon.**_

 _ **DIOS de la nada, the difference is that an army in the Old World and Azeroth operate on completely different ballparks. The point of Serra's magical skill was to show that fact that in the Warhammer universe, mages and magic users have to operate in a far more disciplined manner, unless they become possessed by Chaos. In contrast Magic in Warcraft is far more benign in it's effects on magic users.  
**_ _ **To make a DBZ comparison, magic in Warhammer is high gravity training, while magic in Warcraft is training in regular gravity. Once you return to regular gravity, your power increases. This is what I attempted to show during Serra's magical skirmish. She is also a five hundred year old elf who has been training for a long time to cast magic - putting her soul on the line every time she casts a spell. Azeroth is the one place she can let loose without having her soul be in danger.**_

 _ **If I have made any mistakes while writing the battle do let me know.**_


	22. Chapter 22

**Rearmament**

* * *

The blast of heat coming from the forge was incredible. In contrast with the snow outside, the blacksmith might as well be the jaws of hell itself. Erich fumbled about with his heavy cloak and eventually left it at the entrance, out in the snow. His wool shirt came next, and even then the forge felt oppressively warm. His shift was the last thing to come off. They all joined his cloak in a pile on the outside of the smithy.

The two dwarfs were hammering merrily at their anvil while chattering to each other in their language. Erich patiently waited for one of them to notice him. After a few minutes, he began to sweat profusely while the dwarfs still hammered merrily at the anvil with their hammers. While Erich would have patiently waited until they had acknowledged him, his blood boiled when he noticed that the dwarfs were just hitting the anvil with their hammers and laughing like a pair of mad drunks.

"Excuse me, my good dwarfs, may I speak with you?" Erich said in the most polite way that you could.

Both of the dwarfs acted like they woke from a trance. They looked at each other bewildered, their half naked bodies red in the light of the forge. Then they turned to look at the entrance and saw Erich standing there.

"Och, what do ye want?" One of them spoke.

"Aye. Can ye not see we are busy here laddie?" The other one said.

Erich's brain slowly translated that into something recognizable. These two fellows were worse than Captain Hulda Stoutiron as far as their accents went.

"I heard that you have the forge running and operational, so I came to see it for myself." Erich lied.

Thankfully the dwarfs seemed to believe it. They looked at each other and muttered for a while before one of them spoke. "Nae laddie, we havn't finished warming up the Anvil yet, twill take another hour before we are finished."

Nearly nothing the dwarf said made sense to Erich. Between the strong accent and the fact that the dwarfs were 'warming up their Anvil' he was nonplussed. What in Myrmidia's name did warming the anvil even consist of? All the dwarfs were doing were laughing as they hit the damn thing over and over again with their hammers.

"What?" was all Erich could muster in response to the dwarf metallurgical practice.

"Och, laddie, are ye drunk?" The other dwarf said. In the light of the forge, the two dwarfs stood side by side with each other, their short and squat bodies almost square from the amount of muscle each one of them had. They glowered at Erich as they asked him that.

"What? No. Why would I be drunk at this time of day?" Erich asked. While the question was sarcastic, it tone was lost on the dwarfs. They looked at each other and frowned.

"We'll fix that for ye lad." One of them said. The other procured a flask from behind the anvil. It was filled with a liquid that glowed orange in the light of the forge. As a matter of fact, everything did.

Erich was about to refuse the drink when he remembered. The last time he had a drink was during the night before the Ogre attack. That meant that he had not been drinking for over a week. Beautiful and fond of physical contact as the Night Elves were, Erich doubted they had been slipping him drinks during his fever. After all, what would a swig from a flask even do.

He reached out and grabbed the flask from the dwarf's outstretched hand and took a swig. It was some sort of brandy, but heavier. It burned as it went down his throat but the warmth it generated was pleasant. He emptied the flask in the next swig and returned it to the dwarf.

The dwarfs upended the flask and saw a single drop fall. It sizzled and evaporated almost immediately on the hot floor of the smithy. They looked at each other, then at erich and then burst out laughing.

"Och, the laddie can handle a drink eh?" One of them said.

"Indeed I can." Erich said, remembering suddenly that he had not eaten anything. Drink on an empty stomach. This was going to get very good or very bad soon enough.

The next hour was him laughing with the dwarfs as they talked about nonsense. Erich suddenly felt that the world was a very fun place filled with lovely, jolly people like the two dwarfs that had shared a drink with him and explained to him how anvils needed to be warmed up before use. They spoke about nothing in particular, the dwarfs largely using Erich as a springboard to settle their bets with each other. While Erich could not even understand if they spoke common or dwarfish, all of them seemed to have a good time and were insistent that Erich share that good time with them.

After a while, one of them asked. "Och lad, what do ye want?"

Erich burst out laughing. New helmets and armour for all the mercenaries and a new sword for me."

The dwarfs joined in the jolly laughter for a moment before turning deadly serious. The other one said. "Ye will have to ask the quartermaster for that."

Erich grinned. "And who might the quartermaster be?"

"Ach, its that Stormwind paper pusher in the town hall. Says he fought in the battle of Pyrewood. Methinks the only think he can fight is his wife." A dwarf said.

The other replied. "What a nancy lad, can't even handle his drink proper. Not like ye laddie."

Erich slurred, "So the quartermaster gives you your orders and you make them. No questions asked right?"

"Aye lad. Now off you go."

Erich stumbled out of the cold and fumbled to put on his shirt and his cloak. Meanwhile the forge rang once more as the dwarfs began warming up the anvil. While what the dwarfs had told him made sense in the light of the day, Erich was still confused as to what purpose anvils needed to be heated up. Maybe the quartermaster would clear it up.

* * *

Lieutenant Melrick quite preferred the role of Quartermaster. It was a position of responsibility, of power, and most importantly of safety. From here, in his office in the Strahnbrad Town Hall, he could keep tabs on every bit of resource used or spent on military matters, while informing Stormwind about every thing the mercenaries did.

While Erich's plan had run into heavy snow, and they had been stuck in Alterac for a few months until the snows melted, it had allowed Melrick some breathing space. His job as a SI:7 agent was to gather as much intelligence as he could about the mercenaries. Being a quartermaster meant that he could write thorough reports about his target and deliver them to Matthias Shaw once they were on the move.

Erich might not know it, but the mercenaries had caused quite a stir in the War rooms of the Alliance. Everyone assumed had assumed that the victory against Tarren mill Forsaken might be a fluke or a one time occurrence. The Marshal's report from Southshore might be overly dramatic. The man had been fighting murlocs all his life. If someone defeated an army of Forsaken at his very door, they would seem almost mythical in stature. There was a nasty report from the interior of Lordaeron that said that the Forsaken were just as fanatical as the scourge, and had developed far more lethal plagues than even the Lich King. They way they had swept into Gilneas certainly proved the veracity of those reports. And who had heard of warriors who never looked to their own defences while fighting?

All those doubts had been laid to rest at Pyrewood. Melrick had been on the march with General Garrick, and was supposed to send back reports alongside the ones General Garrick had made. He had been among the soldiers that had escaped from the ambush near Fenris Isle. He had seen first hand the power and the terror that the Forsaken had commanded. Even remembering the ambush brought a chill to his bones that had nothing to do with the wintry weather outside in Alterac.

Erich had rallied the defeated remnants of the Alliance forces at Pyrewood, and had led them to a crushing victory against the Horde. Melrick, being the only surviving senior officer had been put in charge of the defence of Pyrewood itself, while he had led his mercenaries and the bulk of the Alliance forces against the forsaken. Caledra had confirmed the marshal's reports. There was no doubt anymore. Erich Von Peiper was certainly an exceptional general of a calibre not seen since Anduin Lothar had led the Alliance during the Second War. Outnumbered, he had stopped the forsaken warmachine in it's tracks at a time they were all but poised to sweep over every place north of the Thandol Span.

And he had caused grievous personal harm to a personage no other than Sylvanas Windrunner herself. In life, the Ranger General of Silvermoon had been a peerless warrior and a great defender of the High Elven Kingdom. In death, she had freed large swathes of the Undead from the curse of the Lich King and forged them into an army that was dangerous and deadly asset to the Horde. Ever since the Wrathgate, the Alliance and the Horde had been at war even as they strove to fight against the Lich King. Arthas was dead and the world rumbled from the Cataclysm. But the war against the Horde went on. Sylvanas Windrunner had gained the Allegiance of the servants of the Lich King in her quest to provide a 'future' for her people – at the expense of humanity.

Erich Von Peiper strode in the middle of her plans and had destroyed an entire army and most importantly, killed on of the Val'kyr. They were the source of Sylvanas' strength. The Lich King had used them to raise the countless dead of battles, and it seemed that the Banshee Queen had picked up her creator's torch to replace her losses. There was no difference between her and the Scourge. The fact that the Val'kyr could be killed meant that the Forsaken could eventually be defeated. The Death Knight Thassarian had also slain another one of those otherworldly creatures during his failed attempt to secure Andorhal for the Alliance. From what little he knew of the Forsaken, Melrick was sure that the Banshee Queen would hold Erich Von Peiper as a foe that had to be eliminated at the earliest.

Even as he thought about Erich, the doors to the town hall opened, and a heavily bandaged figure in a long duster hobbled in from the cold outside. Melrick did not recognize the figure immediately, then he noticed the bright grey eyes and shock of black hair. It was Von Peiper himself, and from the way he walked, Melrick could tell that he was drunk.

As if to remove all doubt from his mind, Erich spoke. "Melrick. I haven't seen you in a while." He sauntered over to his desk and sat down on a chair opposite to him having the air of a man who owned the place.

"Captain Von Peiper. Caledra told me that you were bedridden after the battle against the ogres." Melrick stammered. He had been crushed by an ogre mage and was on the verge of death according to Caledra.

"Clearly, I got better. Listen, I heard that you are the quartermaster for our little group so I need some things made." Erich's head swayed and he giggled as said that. It was as if a completely different man was wearing his skin. His behaviour and body language was completely different from the man who had led the defence of Pyrewood.

"Are you drunk?" He asked conversationally. From the way Erich was swaying, there was really no need to ask.

"What? Of course not. I just had some of the stuff the dwarfs in the forge were having. Funny fellows, those dwarfs. I didn't understand a single thing they said."Erich laughed. Everyone else turned to look at him.

Melrick smacked his head with his fist. The dwarfs had taken to bringing exotic brew from stranglethorn. It seemed that Erich had drunk enough Junglevine wine to get smashed. He wrote something hasty on a scrip of paper and passed it to his orderly. It was a note telling Captain Dawnbreeze where her charge was. She was probably looking for him right now. Caledra had mentioned that he had a drinking problem. He had to keep Von Peiper here until she arrived to take him back to his bed.

"So, Erich, what were you saying about those dwarfs in the forge?" Melrick said with a smile.

* * *

Caledra would have enjoyed the crisp air of Alterac. It was completely different from the sheltered woods of Eversong forest and the outer gates of Quel'Thalas. The mastery of the High Elves had kept even the chill winds of winter away from their lands, and the weather inside the elf gates had never been cold.

Right now she was worried sick about Erich. What if Druid Moonclaw was wrong? What if Erich was reacting badly to the Mooncloth and this was only the start? By the time she had left Su'ura and Moonclaw, Erich had walked out into the snow. She had followed his footprints to the forge, only to see them disappear and two drunken dwarfs smashing the anvil and laughing loudly.

She had slowly backed out of the forge, opting instead to retrace her steps to the inn where the humans gathered. It was filled with smoke. Thankfully the humans did not wolf-whistle when they saw her. Erich had been professional enough to put a stop to that. Whatever their base instincts might be, his men at least seemed to respect him to a large degree. This was rather different from mercenaries she had seen. While they had mostly been adventurers coming to the keep to claim their bounties, they had largely been free of the rigid discipline Erich inspired in his men even when they were not fighting.

She had asked his subordinates about his whereabouts, and they seemed clueless. However, she was proud of the fact that she had been making serious headway in teaching them common. Erich did not need his magical quill, and therefore, she had decided to teach the boyish Luigi common. He was just as sharp as Erich, and had much more pleasant manners to boot. In a week, she had taught him common on par with Erich. As it was, he asked Caledra in good common if he could join the search. She assented, and the two of them walked out into the snowy weather.

She noticed that Luigi shivered a lot in the snow. She asked him why.

"Ah, madame, I come from a land of mild winters and warm summers. The snow does not sit well with me." He said. His hair shone in the clear sunlight, much like hers. Up close, his resemblance to Arthas Menethil seemed even more uncanny. They had the same green eyes, nose and mouth. However, unlike the former lich king, his face was largely youthful and untroubled.

"Oh, I see. How do you like it in Alterac then?" She asked cordially.

"I sit and I drink, and I stare at the snow. And I mostly worry about the Captain. He shouldn't have to suffer for our mistakes." His face fell.

"What do you mean?"

"We did not have much of a plan when we heard that the ogres were attacking. Our entire strategy revolved around them charging into our pikes, which worked splendidly for the most part. The only problem was that my detachment was not as steady as the Captain's. If he did not charge with the halberds when he did, the ogres would have decimated us. Our pike line was broken." He let out a sigh. "If Captain Erich had commanded my detachments, it would not have happened."

Caledra did not know how to respond to that. For all his brusqueness, Erich's men looked up to him as a leader. "I am sure, he would disagree with your assessment." was all she could say.

"I know. He wants me to be his successor. I am just afraid I will not be able to lead the regiment in the same manner he did." He looked dejected.

Caledra placed a hand on his shoulder. "Look at me. If he has chosen you to be his successor, it means that he believes in you Luigi. I am sure he would not have made you his second in command otherwise. Now lets go find him so you can hear it from him yourself."

He nodded. "The strangest thing is, that Hans says that the Captain was not well respected in the company until he saved all of their lives once in Bretonnia. I just don't know if I have what it takes to do the same thing as him." He sighed. "Being a mercenary is hard work. A lost battle or campaign here and there means that all the money you have made ends up getting lost. The Captain made us stay in Tilea most of the time so that we could send money to our families. In a way he is like a big brother to us making us take care of those we leave behind."

Caledra had no consolation for him. From what she had seen, the mercenaries were happy enough to drink and whore their time away. In this way they were no different from adventurers. "Lets just find him." She repeated.

At this moment, a clerk from the town hall ran up to them, his cheeks flush from the cold. "Captain Dawnbreeze. The quartermaster has a message for you." He handed her a scrip of paper and ran back as fast as his legs could take him

Caledra read the message and her eyes widened. "Come on, we found your Captain." she said to Luigi and ran towards the town hall.

Erich was still talking to Melrick when she entered the town hall. Luigi was a step behind her. It was he who spoke first.

"Signor Capitan?" He said in the strange speech the mercenaries used among themselves.

"Hey, Luigi, how are you doing? How's the day treating you lad? Met any nice ladies?" Erich shouted back in Common.

"Good Signor Capitan. Nothing much Signor Capitan. I was just talking to Capitan Dawnbreeze, Signor Capitan." Luigi replied.

"Hey, I think Quartermaster Melrick here is not taking me seriously. How about you and I change his opinion on our armaments?"

"I will talk to him Capitan. You go get some rest eh?" Luigi replied

Erich stumbled up from his chair and staggered towards him. He leaned and whispered something before passing on a piece of Parchment to luigi. While his tongue was slurred, the fact that he said it in common made it easy for Caledra to eavesdrop

"Lad, I had finished writing a list of requirements an hour before the ogres attacked. We need these weapons, and the drunk bastards at the forge as still warming up the Anvil. Get them to work making things for us. Good luck First Sergeant."

To Caledra's surprise, his words were surprisingly sober. While he trembled holding on to Luigi, his advice seemed logical. It seemed that Erich planned ahead during his sober sprees. This was certainly interesting.

"Ah, Captain Dawnbreeze, have you come to escort me back to my prison?" He asked her, chuckling.

"You need rest, Captain Von Peiper" She replied in a firm voice, holding his wrist and dragging him out.

He followed her obediently back to his quarters, shivering from the cold and ambling about drunkenly. The few people that were out and about stared at them. Erich shouted back at them belligerently and they scampered off. Caledra thanked the weather because it meant that there were only a few people about, mostly the mercenaries on patrol.

Erich had devised a clever system. His men were divided into seven groups that were largely equal, and each day, one of them would patrol the town and keep an eye out for any threat. They were not allowed any drinks while they were out patrolling, but were promised extra once they came back at the end of their shift. While there had been some grumbling, Erich had reminded that it was a much better idea than being caught off guard. It had allowed them to warn the others about the Ogres. Ever since Erich's injuries, the complaints had been remarkably reduced.

Eventually Caledra managed to shove Erich back into his room. She closed the door and breathed. Thankfully the human had not managed to get injured. She wondered about what Druid Moonclaw had said. What if the Human actually had some elven heritage. There was only one way to find out.

"Give me your hand." She said, taking out a dirk from her belt. Forged in Silvermoon a long time ago, it was a beautiful, leaf shaped weapon that was as sophisticated as it was deadly.

Erich held out his hand like an obedient child, waiting his punishment.

Deftly she cut the bandage around his hand and saw the damage. To be more precise, she saw the lack thereof. This morning his body was badly bruised. Now his skin was clear and as firm as it ever had been. It seemed that the Mooncloth, along with the Druid's restoration spells had healed Erich. A week ago, he had barely had any life left in him. Now he was all but healed.

Erich himself held up his hand and muttered, "This has to be the third strangest thing I have seen since this morning" he said, in an offhanded way. Caledra's ears perked up. He was not slurring anymore.

"What do you mean?" She asked defensively.

"I saw a pair of half naked dwarfs laughing at each other and hitting an anvil with their hammers. When I asked them what they were doing, they told me they were warming the anvil up. They were more drunk than I was in the town hall." Erich said with a strange half smile. "The strangest thing I saw since I woke up was this. I am pretty sure I asked Luigi a question – or rather three – in Common. He answered them back in the same language. Now I know the lad is smart. He is going to lead my men after I am dead and gone. What I don't understand is how the lad, who could barely say 'yes' or 'no' a week ago along with some other lewd words, suddenly has a good enough control to reply to my questions in the same language."

"He might have been learning from his peers." Caledra did not like the way this conversation was turning.

"They are all dumber than him. The fact that he is confident enough to negotiate with that yellow bellied coward Melrick on my behalf makes me think that he has grasped the intricacies of the language to push my point across." His smile broadened and he looked directly at her. All traces of his intoxication were gone from his eyes. They were as bright and sharp as they had been right before the battle at Pyrewood. "Now, bright as he is, the lad needs someone to teach him as fast as she taught me. I turn to look at my cap" he held up his feathered hat, "and notice that my enchanted feather has been missing for a while."

"I can explain." She quailed under Erich's intense gaze.

In response he bent his neck and looked at her. "Go on."

"If the worst happened and you were to die, our contract would still continue. I needed someone who could communicate with other people when I was not here. He was the youngest of your Sergeants so I picked him, thinking he would be quick to learn the language."

Erich's smile faded. He twirled his hat in his hands before speaking in his Native Tongue. "The boy is afraid isn't he? He thinks my boots will be too big for him to fill." He snorted. "Preposterous."

"And you think it won't?"

"Oh please. I was an outsider with a strange accent that the previous captain had taken fancy to. The lad grew up in the heartland of Tilea, looks like a prince when he wears the right clothes and looks after his men. When the time comes, they will be tripping over themselves to follow their new Captain to glory." Erich yawned. "I nearly died trying to earn my men's respect. I have done everything I can to ensure that the boy doesn't need to do that. If he can't handle it, then I am a bigger fool than my father ever thought me to be."

Caledra was about to reply when the bells of the town hall began to ring. It was a call to arms.

Erich got up and sighed, putting on his cap. "Help me don my armour will you dear?" He asked in an exasperated voice.

"Wait, you are bandaged and tired and drunk."

"I ran out in the snow to talk to melrick without any problems. I have slept enough, and I have largely sobered down. Now are you going to help me or not?" By this time he already dragging his breastplate from his trunk and scratching a dint on it's surface.

In the end Caledra helped him tie the laces of his armour. With a curt gesture of thanks, he stepped away from her and put on his belt. A pouch of pistol shot hung at his side. Finally he picked up his pistol and blew into the barrel. Satisfied he turned to leave.

"Wait, Erich. What about your sword?" Caledra asked. His scabbard sat on the table, seemingly forgotten.

"What about it?" He asked seemingly unconcerned.

"Your scabbard is empty."

"Very observant Caledra. I need a new one." He said dryly, opening the door for her.

Outside the bell rang wildly calling everyone in Strahnbrad to arms against a new foe.

* * *

 _ **A/N, well, here it is, time to tackle the armour and manpower issue Erich is going to face. He is deep in Alterac and and the runt of the Eastern Kingdoms has something he desperately needs.**_

 _ **solarblaster, yeah. Wonder what will happen if Erich or Serra hear of Moonclaw's theory. Probably laugh until he pisses himself.**_

 _ **Aburg76, that's the point. Warcraft and Warhammer humans have very different reactions to magic. Its something that Serra is going to discover in a little while.**_


	23. Chapter 23

**Recruitment Drive**

* * *

Erich had to admit, the air outside was colder than he had ever known. While the Vaults would snow in the winter. It seemed like a nice coat of frosting on a cake compared to the snow in Alterac. The air outside was thinner than on the lowlands Erich had fought for all his life. The temptation to breathe from the mouth had been overwhelming initially. While marching into Alterac, he had felt light headed and giddy. Wondering if he was suffering from some kind of ailment, he had noticed his men showing the same symptoms, along with the humans that accompanied his march north. Finally, he was beginning to understand the bedraggled condition his men had been in throughout the fight with ogres.

He had heard theories from renowned professors in Nuln about a concept called Acclimatization. The idea was that people that lived on lowlands had trouble breathing in the thinner air of the mountains. This concept revolved around comparing the lives of lowland farmers in Wissenland with the people living in the lower reaches of the grey mountains. The concept was spotty at best, because the people living in the Grey Mountains were largely miners who lived short and hard lives compared to the people of Wissenland and Nuln. They were largely laughed at the common people of Nuln and Wissenland for an idea so preposterous. It would seem that they were not so wrong after all.

Erich wondered how long, if ever it would take them to actually get used to the thinner air. Now, that the alarm had been raised, his men were streaming out from their buildings, clutching their swords and looking for the pike racks placed around the town. Discipline had been maintained, and even now the patrolling platoon was acting as a rallying point for his men. Within the hour, they would be ready for battle once more.

Erich was quite curious as to the type of foe he would be facing. He hoped that they would not be ogres. Miraculous bandages or not, he might not be able to shrug off another pat from another of those massive monstrosities.

Rodrigo was waiting for him by the abandoned fountain, his crossbow loaded and pointed downward. In contrast to the worried tone he had when he had warned of the ogres, Rodrigo's smiling features and twinkle in his eyes suggested something far more manageable.

He spoke first. "Eh Signor, you are missing your sword. Did you leave it in another monstrous foe like last time?" The man's twinkling eyes knew the answer to that already. It was purely a rhetorical question.

Before Erich could reply, Caledra interjected. "Wait, you have lost your sword in a similar manner before?" She sounded shocked.

Erich rolled his eyes before saying, "Yes, try to keep up dear. So Rodrigo, how much money did you make on the betting pool?"

"I tripled my drinking rations. Littorio's boys are fuming." He let out a deep throated laugh at that. Erich had to join in. Rodrigo and Hans knew him well enough. Poor Littorio was too absentminded to compete.

Caledra ruined their private joke again. "You said we were under attack, which is why you rang the town bell. Why are you discussing your gambling spoils right now?" Her face flushed into a pretty shade of pink that suited her.

Rodrigo looked at her and shook his head onerously. Erich stared at her face, which was turning from a shade of pink to beet red. "Listen Caledra. You know Rodrigo knows how to raise the alarm. He wouldn't be talking about my sword or his bets if the enemy was a serious threat." He turned to Rodrigo and said, "Now, to make the pretty lady less mad, what exactly did you see Rodrigo."

"An angry mob of Peasants Signor Capitan. A thousand or so in number. They have pitchforks and cobblestones."

Caledra's eyes widened in shock. She stammered "A t-thousand -"

Rodrigo finished her sentence. "Peasants, Signora. They look like they are ready to keel over and die at any moment. All we have to do is shake our pikes at them and they will disperse."

"Yes, which is what brings me to the most unique aspect of this rabble appearing out of thin air. You mentioned that Alterac was destroyed after the second war and all but obliterated after the undead plague ruined the north. How is it that a thousand angry peasants are marching towards our outpost now?" Erich kept his voice low. Shouting would imply panic.

"T-there were supposed to be a few scattered groups of bandits but we killed their leadership over the last few years." The long eared elf offered unhelpfully.

"Well clearly someone higher up on the command chain has made a mistake. A thousand angry peasants with a pitchfork might be easy to deal with. It does not change the fact that someone has been able to rally that number and bring them to challenge us." Erich sighed. "Is everyone in the Alliance as incompetent as that buffoon Garrick?"He declared.

In return Caledra's expression froze for an instant. Erich saw the anger etched upon her face. "Listen to me you damn _mercenary._ The alliance has stood for order and freedom since the day it was founded during our darkest hour. Say what you want of any one of us, but the Blue banner stands for peace and tranquillity in a world that desperately needs it. What would you know of the noble ideals that have united us through some of the darkest times that we have had to face?" Her passionate rebuttal was something Erich had not expected.

In return he simply shrugged. "I don't care Captain. I fight for the Blue banner because it gives me money and rum." His voice hardened as he continued, "It still doesn't change that fact that I was not informed about a pack of angry Ogres or a thousand peasants intent on evicting us from Strahnbrad."

He turned to Rodrigo. "Rodrigo. Get Littorio to garrison the houses with his men and cut down any large number of the bastards trying to walk into the town unannounced." Turning to Caledra, he said. "Captain Dawnbreeze, tell the Night Elves to garrison the houses to the North. They may fire if a group of more than ten try to charge into the houses." The pair of them scrambled to follow his orders, with Caledra giving him a black look.

Erich sat down at the fountain and reached inside a broken layer of plaster. Inside, was a bottle of rum he had purchased from Southshore. He opened the cork and inhaled it. Then he began to drink, while he planned.

His men were rallying at a fast enough pace. From the way they breathed Erich could tell that they were still having problems adjusting to the thin mountain air. If they could not keep their stamina up the horde of angry peasants could easily surround them and take them out. It seemed that they would once more have to fight in the close quarters of the town.

This presented it's own problems. Pike formations required a lot of place to manoeuvre. Within the confines of the town, they would be sitting ducks if they were flanked. It would also be hard to keep track of the enemy's movements. A smart commander here would exploit Erich's lower numbers and try to surround the village before attacking from multiple sides at once. While Erich was confident enough in his men's abilities to beat back a determined assault from one direction, the weight of numbers could very easily be utilised against them.

Erich's tactical deliberations were rudely interrupted by the sound of a warhorns upon the wind. The noise would have been terrifying to any green boy who could not hold his spear well. For him, it was an irritant. Erich had heard the Carynx of Norscan Marauders, the trumpets of Bretonnian Knights and the deep pounding drums of greenskins crawling out of the badlands. The sound of peasants blowing mountain horns seemed almost trite in comparison. Erich shrugged and put back the half empty bottle of Rumsey Rum back in it's usual spot.

The pikemen assembling were of like mind. As usual, they knelt while assembling. For all practical aspects it was almost as good as sitting and it helped conserve their stamina. They grinned at the sound and muttered to themselves. Rodrigo's men had been among the assembling soldiers, giving them a disposition of what they were up against. They had won a flawless victory against a pack of ravenous ogres. A bunch of peasants outnumbering them was like taking sweets from a child in comparison.

Bretonnians were famous for using "shepherds" of Tilean origin to help pacify peasant rebellions all the time. The fact that they were facing something so familar in a strange land bolstered the men's morale. Victory or not, half a hundred charging ogres had rattled his boys. Breaking peasants would be just the thing to cheer them up.

"Can you boys believe the din those bastards are making?" Erich asked the soldiers casually. A barrage of flashing teeth and smiles greeted him in return. Someone in the line said something about delusions of grandeur.

"Yes, those are big words son. I am happy to see you haven't been neglecting your education while under my stewardship." A ripple of laughter erupted from the lines. Erich had fought side by side with many of these men before, and recognized some of their faces. Once they had been full of distrust. Now they looked up to him as he had once looked up to his father. Or maybe it was just the half bottle of rum on an empty stomach making him feel warm and benign.

"Hey Capitan, you think those poor fools will leave us alone if we waved our pikes at them?" Once more, it was someone from the back of the lines.

"I don't know son. It can't hurt to try. We were getting paid to drink and make merry in the snow, and now we have to fight them." Several cheers rose up from the men. They clearly liked the fact that the payment had been made in advance and that their food and drink were all paid for. Like all mercenaries, Erich always cherished the breaks between battles.

"We will be out of Pikes if we put their heads on walls Capitan." Someone else shouted. A wave of laughter ran throughout the line. Erich had to join in.

"Alright boys new rules. Only Ogre heads or bigger on Pikes. That way we can keep the tools of our trade and make this town prettier." A few of them whistled. Erich had noticed the lopped of heads of the ogres on spikes surrounding the town. Several of them hung on pikes as well, artfully put up by his men to create dread and terror.

"Hey, has anyone seen Sven? I need him to carry our standard."

"He is probably with that brown haired girl from that village Capitan." came the response.

"Wait, Sven is with someone? He never told me that?" Wolf-whistles dogged Erich's latest statement. Sven was remarkably shy around women. Erich did not know whether he should be happy or concerned at this latest development. Then again, it was not his place to bother with Sven's personal life.

At this moment Caledra came running up to him, her expression full of worry and concern.

"Erich, they want to parley." She said in common.

"What?" He asked. This was surprising. Peasants would always work themselves up into a frenzy. Negotiations were too difficult for them. It was a most odd state of affairs.

"Alright lads. Officer's council. Get ready to form up in a moment." He followed Caledra towards the northern road of the town.

When they were in a secluded spot he grabbed her and said, "Are you joking?"

In return she pushed him away and looked at him with an angry frown. "Why would I joke about a parley?"

"I never heard of peasants parleying before." He replied.

"Get used to it. Their leader wants to speak with you." She said, straightening his cap. "I need you to look presentable, not like a half drunk peasant."

"What do they want to parley about?"

"I don't know Erich. I will be accompanying you. When we parley, it is generally the person parleying and the standard bearer. I will bear the Alliance banner." She said.

"So, you will stand there and look pretty while I do all the work?" He leered at her.

In the span of a moment, Erich saw Caledra's face contort. The next moment, he felt a stinging slap on the side of his face. To Erich's drunken senses, the entire sequence happened so fast that he was not able to flinch away from the blow.

In the next moment, Caledra was clutching her hand and saying something in her language. While beautiful to listen to, Erich doubted it was something she would say in polite company.

"I deserved that." He said slowly.

Caledra grabbed his collar and pulled his face close "Yes you did, you drunken bastard." she said with gritted teeth, before releasing her grip on his shirt and pushing him away.

"You look a lot prettier when you are angry captain." He said out loud to see if he could get a rise out of her.

She turned to look at him. "What was that you said?" The sound of knuckles cracking accompanied her question.

"I said, You go get the standard while I wait, captain." Erich said sheepishly.

She kept walking away. Erich sat down in on the steps and exhaled. This was going to be busy work. Maybe he should stop drinking during the day.

Then again, maybe not.

* * *

The bright blue banner flapped in the cold wind blowing through the mountains. The lion's head emblazoned on it caught the light of the afternoon sun and shone like molten gold in the forge. Caledra had let her hair loose and enjoyed it being caressed by the wind. It almost made her remember her time as a farstrider, gently enjoying the wind flowing through the trees of eversong forest. She had found that humans found it distracting if she left her hair loose, enraptured as they were by her beauty. It was certainly an added edge in negotiations, taking their attention towards her. It was how she had secured her job as an interpreter in the Keep.

Erich however was not paying her any mind. He clasped his bandaged hand, holding his medallion and was murmuring something, deaf to the world. For all his flirtatious banter, when it came down to it, he paid her surprisingly little attention – amorous or otherwise. Even in his drunken stupors he was pretty frank with her, as if she was an old comrade in arms rather than a beauty to be courted. The behaviour was certainly vexing.

She leaned in to listen to Erich's murmurs, scarcely audible over the blowing wind. She focused on Erich's lips and neck, feeling his pulsating vocal chords and bobbing adam's apple. Faintly she heard the following words coming from his mouth.

"... _so that those that keep thee in our hearts may have to shed no blood this day. For our foes are many, and we are few. As ye taught us in ages long past, let us stand arm in arm together as brothers once more so that the harmony you taught us may be sung again in the hallowed lands of the South. May the mountains tremble as we, thy people raise our voices as one to give glory to thee, as we did in ages long past when you walked amongst us."_

All traces of his drunkenness had vanished from him. Caledra had seen him do something similar before. It had mostly been an effort of will. He would try to throw up as much as he could so that the alcohol he drunk left his body. She had not seen him do that now that. Erich had never struck her as a overly religious. While most generals and leaders of Stormwind would beseech the light for aid before a battle, Erich instead repeated his plan, picking out flaws and joking with his men.

The next thing she knew was Erich looking at her with a quizzical expression on his bruised face. "Captain Dawnbreeze, I am flattered at your gaze directed towards me. I would blush if my face was not beaten black and blue, but this is certainly improper." A mischievous twinkle sparkled in his sea grey eyes.

"No, I had never taking you for someone who would pray before a parley." She replied coolly. The sombre penitent man that had stood before her, clasping his hands and praying to strange goddess had disappeared. The cocksure mercenary captain had returned.

Erich chuckled. "No, I do not look like the most devoted sort do I?" His smile lessened. "The Goddess we worship teaches us not to rely on faith. The prayer I recited is only when I have to fight against others of my kind." There was something approaching remorse in his eyes. This was a completely different person than the calm and collected leader she had seen during the thick of the fighting against the Forsaken.

She was about to say something when her hair caught in the breeze and whipped about her head, flying in a tizzy about the both of them. Erich swore as a few slivers of her hair got caught on his lips. Caledra suddenly noticed that she had walked a few steps closer to him while she was eavesdropping on his prayer. The two of them moved back a step, with Erich wiping his lips with the back of his hand. "That was certainly awkward. Let us never speak of this moment ever again." He said stiffly while he fumbled about in the snow.

Caledra could not help but laugh at the entire scene. All of Erich's calm and collected demeanour had evaporated the moment she had stepped close to him.

At this moment, a warhorn rang out from the hillside, and Caledra spied a pair of figures walking through the snow. "They are coming." She warned, gripping the Banner of the Alliance tightly.

"Who are they?" Erich asked her, squinting ahead.

"I don't know. They seem to be carrying a banner though." She answered

"What heraldry do they bear?"

"I can't make it out - " The rest of her sentence never left her lips. Her eyes widened as she saw the colour of the tattered cloth. It was orange, and the device was a swooping eagle and three stars. She knew it from her time in Stormwind Keep. If it had been the ghost of her sister coming out of the snow, she could not be any more surprised.

"Well, what is it Caledra?" Erich said.

"I-its the heraldry of Alterac." She replied. How had that damned nest of traitors to the Alliance managed to survive this long?

"Wasn't Alterac supposed to be a dead kingdom?" Erich said testily. Caledra nodded in assent.

"Does nothing in this damned land stay dead?" Erich responded sarcastically. "You know, what? Don't reply to that. I don't even want to know."

By this time the figures close enough. One of them was a middle aged man, older than Erich with his brown hair turning to grey, while the other was about as old as Luigi, with dark brown hair and a beard that was akin to peach fuzz. The younger man held the banner of Alterac.

In contrast to the banner she held, the orange banner was far more tattered and threadbare. Caledra could make out parts of the banner that had been sewn again with linen to hide the pockmarked pieces of silk. She had to resist the urge to laugh. Despite Erich's sarcastic mutterings Alterac was dead. The banner before her was the shambling remains of a den of traitors. She spat.

"Is this how the Alliances come to parley? With whores and their whoremongers offering to sell us their wares. Wrynn's alliance is even more of a blight on Strom's honour than Lothar's was." The old man spoke while the younger one jeered at her.

Caledra wanted to draw her blade and strike down the old man where he stood. She composed herself. The people of Alterac held the advantage this day, no matter how little Erich seemed concerned with their numbers. At the least the longer the negotiations drew out, the more time Erich's men would have to defend the town.

Unlike Pyrewood, whatever remained of Strahnbrad was crumbling into disrepair. The walls of the once prosperous town were now little more than hurdles and most of the repair work had been focused on making the town habitable. Caledra could understand why Erich had been furious now. They had focused precious time and resources on making the town a somewhat suitable place to stay put for the winter instead of repairing the walls.

"Gentlemen, I think there has been some sort of misunderstanding." Erich's voice pulled her out of her thoughts. "I believe you have called my associate a whore, and me her pimp. I have to inform you that you are sorely mistaken, despite making what some would call a reasonable assumption given your rural circumstances." He might as well been talking two merchants trying to sell him a horse. Caledra was dumbfounded at his gall.

"What the hell are you talking about you pompous peasant? Maybe I skin those bandages off you after we force you to leave our town." The younger man, scarcely out of boyhood said, while gripping the pole of his staff. Both the banners fluttered wildly in the wind.

"Ah, so the young man has a tongue he can use to hurl threats at me. How adorable." Erich smiled at the boy's angry outburst "I was simply correcting your associate's assumption that Captain Dawnbreeze here was a prostitute I was going to offer to you as a peace offer. You see, she is the pimp, and I am the poor unfortunate soul that has to perform sordid acts for money." He held up his bandaged hands and took off his hats. "Alas, my last clients were all too rough, and I had been happily convalescing in peace when you fine gentlemen had to disturb the peace and quiet with your incessant tooting. Now, what say this was all a misunderstanding, and you go back to your hovels in peace and let us pass the winter?" Erich said his piece and stepped back.

The two men talked among themselves for a minute and a half before shaking their heads. "No. Someone drove the ogres from the passes. We will retake our homeland, and kill all those who stand in our way." Then they started to return to their lines.

Caledra's heart sank. The parley was over. Now they would have to fight a desperate battle against betrayers who outnumbered them.

Erich's laughter stopped them in their tracks. It was the kind of laugh one makes after hearing a vulgar joke at a tavern. They turned to look at the strangely dressed madman laughing at their expense.

"Of course the ogres have been driven off. I did it. Would you like to see their heads on the walls of your run down hovel of a town?"Erich offered.

The old man turned and sneered at Erich, "Hah, as if you pathetic fop. No one can defeat the Crushridge ogres."

"The heads on those pikes over there beg to differ. And the pathetic fop speaking to you now is a mercenary veteran." Erich said, pointing to a cluster of impaled heads on the northern entrance to Strahnbrad.

While the old man took out a spyglass to take a closer look from where he stood, the boy with the banner glared insolently at Erich. Caledra had been all but forgotten.

"What is it Uncle, are they telling the truth?"

The old man's bluster disappeared as he gulped and nodded.

"Y-you killed the crushridge ogres?" He managed to say. His face had turned pale even as the icy winds buffeted it.

Erich simply nodded.

"How many were there?"

"About fifty or so. None of them made it back." Caledra said wanting to be part of the conversation.

"Fifty or so? That means Mug'thol's forces have lost a third of their number and he doesn't know about it!" The older man's face was a mixture of awe and terror. The younger man simply stared at Erich with his jaws agape. Eventually the man managed to say. "How many warriors did you lose?"

Erich's smile vanished as he looked at the old man straight in the eyes. "None. Are you still sure that you will be skinning me when all this is over, instead of the other way around?"

To Caledra it seemed that Erich had grown while the older man had shrunk.

"Wait, you are still taking over our land." He said.

Erich replied, "If you had fought for it, maybe you would still be holding it instead of standing outside like a pair of beggars trying to threaten someone with a broken dirk." His contempt for the two rolled off him like a wave.

"This is our land, we will fight you for it." The boy holding the banner said. Erich turned his attention towards him.

"You will die. No matter what you do, you will die." Erich's voice had all the solemnity of a prophet. "If you try to attack us, we will massacre you. If you let us be, when spring comes we will march north into the plaguelands. The undead will attack Alterac and they will kill you. If we leave tomorrow, the ogres will be driven into a frenzy and they will kill you. Face it son, your people had a good run but now they are about to become chaff on the wind."

The anger in the boy's eyes went out, replaced by panic. Erich smiled grimly.

"Of course, there is a way out, but it will be cost you much."

"What of this way?" The old man asked.

Erich shrugged his shoulder and said, "Proud men like you would never agree to it. Go back to your lines, we will commence slaughtering you soon enough. Lets go Caledra, we have wasted enough time with these treacherous folk."

"Wait, good sir, please. Tell me what we can do to save our homeland." The boy had dropped to one knee, with his banner cluttering to the ground.

Erich walked over to him and placed a bandaged arm on his head."What will you do to save your homeland and your people son?" He asked the boy in a gentle tone.

"I would do anything to return home." The boy's eyes glowed with determination.

"Very well. You shall surrender to my men, and swear an oath of Fealty to the Alliance. In return, I will make sure that you shall have enough men and supplies remaining to guard your lands in the spring.

The boy gulped angrily before nodding.

"Furthermore, my men and I are prepared to train your shambling joke of a rabble into becoming an army to be proud of. All at a price of course." Erich's eyes gleamed.

The old man grumbled, "We have little gold to pay you with, _mercenary._ " The last word might as well have been an insult as far as Caledra could tell.

"The King of Stormwind pays me more than you ever could old man. As it turns out, I am interested in your men. I will train your troops, and in return, I will provide them a career opportunity in loot, pillage and glory, all for the highest bidder of course. These are my terms gentlemen. Take them to your leader, and farewell. May we meet again – on the battlefield, or off it." Erich finished with a bow and a flourish.

The boy turned to look at the old man, and nodded. The old man's face turned darker. "Very well. We shall agree to your request." he said with an extreme amount of venom.

"Oh great, tell me of your leader's decision in a few hours. My men are getting impatient waiting for a battle." Erich said as he began to walk away. Caledra remained rooted on the spot. Erich had completely missed all the subtle cues.

"I said, we agree to your request _mercenary._ My men will be surrendering in an hour." The man spat, and continued. "Once more the Alliance twists our arms and uses us as the bulwark against the horde. Some things never change, Pellas."

A moment of confusion flitted across Erich's face, and then it vanished underneath a triumphant smile.

"We shall await you at the northern gate."

Caledra's footsteps seemed heavy in comparison to Erich who practically flew back to the town, skipping merrily along the snow. Caledra caught him right by the outskirts right underneath the eaves of one of the buildings, out of sight of the men. She left the banner at the Northern Entrance to the town, opposite to Erich's mercenary banner.

"Hey, Captain Dawnbreeze, what did you think of my negotiations?" Erich asked her cheerily.

In response Caledra pushed him against the door and held him by his collar.

"Do you know what you have done Erich? Who gave you permission to even parley with the people of Alterac?" She fought to keep her voice down even as she gnashed her teeth at his stupidity.

"You invited me to the parley remember?"

"And what made you think that you were to be the one setting down terms and conditions?"

"Someone had to talk. The man called you a whore and he might as have cut out your tongue because you stopped talking."

"And you ended up giving them their kingdom back? The one they had betrayed the Alliance for?"

"They will be a puppet state of Stormwind at best. Look at them Caledra, their leaders had a half starved look to them, and wore rusty mail and leather. Their banner – the last vestige of their homeland is worm eaten and patched up with cheap cloth. If I promised them their home and asked them to jump, they would ask me how high I wanted them to." Erich grabbed her hands and slowly moved her hands away from him.

Caledra was suddenly aware that their faces were very close. She took a step back. Erich sighed in relief.

"Caledra, listen. Tell your superiors that you have managed to win Alterac back into the fold of the Alliance. This place is a very well guarded defensive location. A few hundred dwarfs with their cannon will turn any Forsaken army into mincemeat."

"What do you think will happen when I tell my superiors that you have been arming people who have actively harmed the Alliance for the past decade and a half?" She was exasperated. Erich had swapped a nightmare for another.

"When you tell them that your diplomatic skills brought an entire nation into the fold of the Alliance they will give you a medal." Erich replied.

"That is not the problem. Training and arming people that wanted to kill us half a day before is the problem. Light, what were you thinking Erich?"

"These people are a step away from starvation and death. Even if the old man and his brat of a nephew wants to betray us, the starving horde of peasants they call an army will be grateful to us. I am buying new allies with the resources at my disposal Caledra."

"And what is this about using scum like this for your forces. I heard your conditions for helping them Erich. What are you even trying to do?"

"Make the bastards die in place of my men. An arrow or blade that catches one of them is the same as a blow warded by my boys."

Caledra had nothing to say to that. Erich was cold and calculating, but bullying a people on the end of their tether just so he could use them as meat shields was a special kind of disgusting. Traitors or not, no one deserved to be arrow fodder. She said as much to Erich.

In response, he just smiled at her. "Tell me Caledra. What do you think would happen if these men were left to fight the Forsaken off with just a few pieces of leather and sharpened pitchforks?"His smile lessened. "They will die, and be raised once more. They might be of less value to me than my men, but I am in desperate need of men to fill out my ranks. I will teach them to fight, so that after this war, they will always be able to defend themselves." His earnest manner in this was rather surprising to her.

"But they are half starving, hungry and barely own the clothes on their back." She said trying to tell Erich of the folly in his plan.

"I know," came the reply. "They would make excellent mercenaries."

He turned to leave. Even as he did, he wrote down something on a scroll with his enchanted and handed it to Caledra. Then he was gone.

The paper simply read

 _Tell Melrick to double the orders for equipment._

* * *

 _ **A/N, expect more Serra and the dreadful presence of Sylvanas next time.**_

 ** _Aburg76, yeah. It doesn't get more classic than drunk midgets hitting things with their hammers._**

 ** _solarblaster, Funny thing is, Most of Azeroth's regular military troops just stand around and act as garrisons waiting for something to happen while adventurers do all the fun stuff._**

 ** _captndetergent, Yeah, who knows._**


	24. Chapter 24

**Marked for Death**

* * *

The sea held a special place in the heart of the Elves. When the world was young, the Eldest race lived on the paradise that was Ulthuan. Under the tutelage of the Everqueens, they were a peaceful and harmonious kind who had no need for weapons or war. They were the chosen of the Old Ones, blessed with long lives, grace unsurpassed, and the capacity to wield magic that was unparalleled.

In the time before the great war, when the world was flooded with demons, the sea was a place of danger. Only a few brave – some would call them foolhardy – elves dared to set sail upon it. In the ages since Aenerion the defender had saved Ulthuan and the world, Elves had sailed upon the waves. They lived on it, they fought on it and they died on it. If Ulthuan was the home of the Elves, the sea was their playground.

Which is why Serra's time above deck surprised even the most hardened crewmen on the ship. They must have expected her to be a frail elf – or half elf – who would be incessantly seasick on the sea. She probably had spent more time on the seas than the entire crew combined. As it was, she could nimbly make her way through the ship during the harshest gale.

The crew had not been getting very many of those, ever since the battle on the sea. Serra had been coaxing the wind elementals around them to direct them onwards to the north. The captain, a grizzled sea man for twenty years might suspect that the wind that so fortuitously guided them along their route was not entirely natural in nature, but he was not complaining. While he kept an eye on Serra, she was not the subject of so many unwelcome stares anymore during her time on the deck of the ship.

Her companions were also proving to be more communicative. They had thought her a strange half elf traveller by the look of her associating with mercenaries to earn a living, but now they looked at her as a powerfull sorceress in her own right. Ever since then, Serra had been forced to talk to them on a far more regular basis. While the pair of them certainly saved her from ennui or constant meditation, Serra realised how much younger races annoyed her when they spent too much time around her. Still, she supposed that Asuryan had sent her on a sacred mission to find a way back home.

Whenever she was alone, she could feel the sacred embers burn deep within her, emitting a power that she had only felt from afar in the Palace of the Phoenix King when she had been allowed in the court. The Sacred flame of Asuryan at his shrine burned with an infinitely greater intensity than the one in her own body, but even it was a negligible fraction of the power she had witnessed in the vast being. To think that such power even existed was something that redefined the scale on which she had thought. Compared to a being like Asuryan, the difference between Serra and her companions might as well be the slight change in colour of ants in three different colonies. Faced with such a stark realisation of what it meant to be mortal in the eyes of the gods, she tried to empathise more with her fellow travellers.

The gnome, Peggy Cogwhistle said that she was a native of Gnomeregan, and was driven out of her home with the rest of her kind after a horrific accident a few years ago. By this time Serra had found it hard to pay attention to the gnome and was forced to smile outwardly and nod sympathetically while she retreated to the corners of her mind to meditate slowly on the waves of the sea. After a while she forced herself to bring back her mind to the table, only to notice that the gnome was casting some sort of magic spell.

Serra was surprised when that spell was created something edible, and something that smelled quite sweet and fragrant and looked like a confectionary. The gnome sighed and said, "I wanted a strawberry one, but I made a cherry." She held it up for both Serra and her friend Dana to examine.

The older human mage soothed the dimunitive gnome's distress by saying, "There there, Peggy. Cherry's good enough for me. How about some water for the wine?"

The gnome perked up at that and conjured a skein of ice cold water to mix the wine with. Serra was nothing short of astounded. She had assumed that the two of them had no magic worth noticing. Clearly she was wrong. Not in a single tome of the white tower was there a spell to conjure food out of magic. Enhancing growth and curing diseases magically was one thing, but using magic to actually conjure food was something of a fool's errand. The ambient chaotic energies in the food would be harmful to the person eating it. Of course, there was no taint of chaos in the magic the two mages had used here.

"Um, miss Serra, would you like one of these? I can only make a few of these before I need to rest."The gnome's voice intruded upon her thoughts.

"Yes, I would love to." Serra started. She had not expected the gnome to do something like this for her.

Serra carefully observed everything the gnome did, but something did not quite fit between the incantations, movements of the hands, the surge of the magic and the way a plate of cherry flavoured confectioneries appeared in the middle of the table. Judging by the tremendous amount of non interest everyone showed to them, it seemed that conjuring food was quite common in Azeroth.

"Where did you learn how to do that?" Serra asked Peggy, while all the three of them took a bite.

Peggy smiled. "I learned it in Dalaran. Of course, the basic concept of the spell was taught to me by the mage trainer in gnomeregan many years ago. Did you like it?"

Serra thought it was a bit too dry for her tastes, but maybe that was how the gnome preferred it. "I love it!" she said, putting a bit of effort into her smile.

The gnome blushed in response. "T-thank you! It took me some time to actually get the basics down, and even now it's not perfect. I wanted a strawberry one, and it is a bit too dry. Oh well. If I keep trying one day it is going to be perfect." She suddenly yawned.

Dana butted in. "Peggy, you should get some sleep, that last one took a bit out of you."

The gnome nodded and finished her wine before giggling, "Good night you two...hic!" Then she swayed ever so slightly as she went below decks.

Serra turned to the human to continue her conversation. This Dalaran place sounded quite interesting to her.

The human, Dana was of a different sort from the gnome. Careful and precise, she was easily a good mage as far as the humans of this world went. Perhaps even something above the mediocrity that the vast majority of humans seemed to fall in. Older, but still eye catching, the clothes she wore brought enough attention to her toned body and ample breasts. Serra had to smile. She reminded her of Druchii Sorceresses in her dress. Of course compared to their dark cousins, the human dressed conservatively.

"So, Dana, tell me about Dalaran." She smiled at the human.

The human looked at her squarely and said, "Dalaran is perhaps the premier city on Azeroth for the study of the Arcane. It was built a long time ago when the High Elves agreed to teach humans magic. Currently, it is floating above the air in Northrend and acts as a neutral sanctuary during this time of war. Why do you ask?"

"Nothing. A floating magical city is something that piques my professional interest if I may say so."She smiled at the cool looks of the human mage. This was rather interesting. An entire city made to levitate. This place seemed to be unique. The White Tower of Hoeth did not float, although parts of it did. Even the Temple cities of the Slann, mages without compare did not float, but parts of it did. "How high is it?" She asked.

Dana's eyes narrowed. "Above the clouds. Why do you ask?"

"Like I said, as a mage, it piques my interest. I would like to visit if I have the time."

"Then why are you going to Northrend."

"I have been tasked to go to a place called Ulduar. The answers I seek are locked within."

"Interesting, very interesting." The human drained the last of her cup. Serra did likewise. "May I offer you a refill?"

Serra nodded. The human in a show of her arcane 'skill' caused the bottle of wine to levitate and fill their cups once more. Then she smiled at her. Serra was certainly amused. If the human wanted to show how at ease she was while handling magic, this would certainly suffice. For a small child that is. Serra could sense the magic draining from the human while she cast her magic. She would be sleeping for a few extra minutes the next day.

"Now, I will get you into Dalaran – on one condition." The human said.

Serra's ears perked up. "I am listening."

"Take a look at this." The human brought out a scroll from her bag. There was something curious about it. It seemed to fade almost into nothingness at times, and at other times, it was so real that everything else in the room, Serra, Dana, the table, the wine, all of it seemed to be ethereal and dreamlike in contrast to it's solidity. There was a sense of timelessness about the thing. Serra knew of a spell that could do something similar – Birona's timewarp. Someone had cast an enchantment on that piece of paper that mimicked – no went beyond – the Timewarp.

"Fascinating." Serra replied, and for once there was no sarcasm in her voice. This was sublime magic at it's finest. She was sure that no human – or even elf – would be able to cast a magic of this sort.

"You haven't read it yet." Dana said.

"Oh, right." Serra grasped the parchment and her body shuddered as she felt the tiniest bit of that magic course through her sensitive nervous system. This was something unique.

The letter read:

 _Dana,_

 _I hope this letter finds you in good help and spirits. We appreciate your help in the Caverns of Time on numerous past occasions, and must ask you once more for your assistance._

 _The Wyrmrest temple will soon be in danger from the minions of Deathwing and the Old Gods that he has fallen to. The call to arms has been sounded, and we will need the help of every skilled adventurer who can help us – no matter their allegiance._

 _Your friend_

 _Chromie._

 _PS: Bring any help that you can._

She returned it to the human who put it back in her backpack.

"Wyrmrest Temple is on the way to Uludar. I will make a deal with you. Help me in defending the Temple, and I shall aid you in your quest and grant you entrance into Dalaran." The human said, her voice slurring slightly. Serra noticed that she had not mixed water into her wine and drunk the whole thing in a gulp.

"Why do you need my help? This letter suggests that you are a good enough adventurer on your own."

"Because your power is greater than mine. When I saw the Naga slither onto the ship, I had thought that we were done for. You killed them all single-handedly without breaking into a sweat. I had thought that only someone like Lady Proudmoore or the other members of the Council of Six would have this amount of power." She sighed, "It was terrifying, awe inspiring and magnificent." Her eyes glittered as she told Serra what the battle had looked like from her perspective.

"So, this Lady Proudmoore, is she strong?" Peggy seemed to worship the ground where the Leader of the human nation of Theramore walked upon. Serra was intrigued. Humans in the Old World were at best barely competent mages who could harness a single wind of magic. The aberrations of Chaos did not count. Powerful human mages were certainly something to be investigated.

" Yes, perhaps the strongest mage who ever has lived." Dana replied, yawning. She then stared dreamily at Serra.

Serra smiled. "You know what, Dana, you are right about one thing. I am stronger than you. In fact, I believe I am stronger than any human, whether she be a prodigy of your kind or no. I will accompany you to this temple, and in return you will grant me access to Dalaran."

The human nodded and got up. Serra made to follow. Suddenly the human stumbled towards her and gave her a hug, her breasts pressing against hers. The human even had the audacity to bring her lips to Serra's ear and give her earring a tug. She then sighed erotically. Serra rolled her eyes. Of course, a drunken human would act like an animal in heat.

She gently pushed Dana away, well beyond the range where their lips could intertwine and said. "Go to bed child. You have nothing that interests me."

The human looked at her and sniffled. Then she followed her Gnomish companion and went to bed.

Serra paced around the ship for a while, staring at the stars. It was nice and quiet, almost meditative. She had not been rattled by the clumsy advance the human had made towards her. Of course they would be attracted to Elves. The Eldest race had grace, charm and beauty that humans could never hope to match. It was the way that had intrigued her more than the thought of it. Most humans would jeer at her and try to approach her in a menacing manner – it was in their nature. In contrast, Dana had thrown herself at her in a drunken state. It was quite probable in the morning that she would not even remember the embarrassment.

In contrast Erich's drunken behaviour was all the more mystifying. He drank enough to put a dwarf to shame, and for all that she had never seen him black out or behave too indecently. Even during the time in the Southshore town hall, his flirting had been intentionally obtuse to the point that it had become a farce. For all his brash bravado, he seemed to be uninterested in women.

Serra sighed as she headed back to bed. It was beneath her to even think about humans and their behaviours. But this talk of powerful human mages and elves and humans living in a magical city had piqued her interest.

Who knew Azeroth was going to be so much academically stimulating?

* * *

The slime dripped off the ceiling of the dark tunnels in big drops, falling to the cold and dreary floor with a splash that sickened the young Sin'dorei to her core. Occasionally, the river of toxic sludge that flowed throughout the Undercity would divulge some sentient Oozes. While they were mostly harmless, a few of the bigger ones would attack passers by. As it was, the Kor'kron Overseers had their hands full quelling the ambient monstrosities that would slither up from the depths.

She clutched a letter in her hands. Last week, she had been living the quiet life in Silvermoon. The vengeance of the Blood Elves had found the Lich King and he had died, slain by mighty Paladins and the Vengeful dead. Now, she along with most of her kin had decided return to a quiet life of rebuilding Quel'Thalas. The trolls were still active in Zul'Aman, and there were still the mindless dead crawling around the Scar and the Ghostlands. It would take decades of rebuilding, but with a restored Sunwell, the Blood elves had all the time in the world.

Once more, Talaena wished to be back in the comfort of her snug home within the Bazaar. Allies though the forsaken might be, they reminded her too much of the day when Silvermoon fell. It could not be helped. The way the undead carried themselves was etched in her memory. Rotting limbs, exposed bones and the smell of decay clung to the forsaken, just like it had on the day they had been slaves of Arthas and the Lich king. On the day the Sunwell died.

The smell of the Undercity was incredibly bad. The first time Talaena had been to this place, a novice rogue whose only prized possession were her father's daggers from his time as a ranger. All had resolve had vanished when she had seen the undercity and all it's horrors. Even now, she woke up from time to time in the field, shaking all over from seeing the live humans being experimented upon or being harvested into abominations.

Today Talaena was here because of a different reason. Yesterday, a letter had been delivered to her quarters in the Bazaar. Her hands had shaken when she saw the wax seal. It was the seal of the High Elven Ranger General – a seal that had not been used ever since Sylvanas Windrunner had fallen during the defence of Silvermoon. She knew what that meant.

In the years since she had left Silvermoon, she had ventured to the different corners of Azeroth and even gone to Outland, looking for any members of her family. While she had picked up tantalising rumours, none of them had ever borne fruit. Instead she had become an accomplished rogue who had taken part in assault on Quel'Danas and Icecrown. While she had the honour of speaking to the Banshee Queen once before, it was something she did not want to repeat.

And yet here she was, in the clammy and dank horrifying place of the Undercity. The miasma of rot permeated the place, assaulting her senses with every step she took. Talaena could not bear to look at the few forsaken 'pets' living humans who had been lobotomised and crippled. Even the Kor'Kron looked away in disgust.

In her time fighting with the other races of the horde, she had formed a bond of kinship with them. Much like the Blood Elves, they were outsiders and the valiant few banding together to fight the good fight against an uncaring world that did not care for them. The Alliance had betrayed the Kingdom of Quel'Thalas in it's darkest hour and left it for dead. The horde would do no such thing.

To see the proud warriors of the horde ignoring such atrocities sickened her to her core. She did not want to stay here for a moment more than necessary. Until then, she had to call upon her fortitude to bear with the sadistic horrors that thronged the sewers of the once proud Capital of the Alliance in a macabre parody of the living.

After a while Talaena reached the royal quarter of the Undercity. It's brooding and sombre majesty made her feel all the more unwanted. Still, a summons from the Banshee Queens could only be ignored at her own peril. She breathed deep, and almost gagged from the smell before quickly moving inside. The Death Guard sprang into action immediately. Their unlife had made them tireless and alert. Their heavy plate armour would make them tough opponents on the battlefield. She showed them her letter and they let her pass.

As Talaena walked towards the Hall of the Dark Lady, she turned her mind back to a few rumours. There had been whispers among the crowded streets of the Bazaar that the forsaken had been using blight to ruin entire swathes of farmland. That was a prudent if horrifying move to root the Forsaken to their land. Another – more worrying rumour – had come to her notice. The Deathguard had been decimated by the Alliance on two separate battlefields. A Death Knight of the Ebon blade had marched in with an Alliance army into Andorhal and nearly defeated the forsaken before being forced to retreat. Another battalion's worth of the Deathguard had been obliterated during the retreat from Pyrewood. The alliance had won a crushing victory there and driven the forsaken into the safety of Tirisfal.

Talaena did not want to verify all this information on her own. Any time spent in the gloomy and blighted lands of the Forsaken brought nightmarish memories back to her mind. She would listen to what the Dark Lady had to say, do her part and then return to her increasingly glamorous life in Silvermoon. Fifty years ago, she could not even dream of affording a place in Silvermoon. Now the city was the only place she could call home.

When the long winding tunnel filled with Deathguard finally ended, she stepped into a vast underground chamber carved in the style of the Forsaken. On a Dias in the centre of a room stood a throne, and upon it sat the Former Ranger General, of the Forsaken herself.

Four others knelt at Sylvanas Windrunner's feet. One of the undead chamberlain directed Talaena to follow suit. She did likewise. Two of the Others were Death stalkers, some of the finest human rogues in life. Undeath had made them more versatile in their jobs. One of them was a goblin in a dark hooded cloak that covered it up nearly completely. She could barely make out the glint of two daggers in the folds of the cloak. The final member was a big and burly orc, wearing the pelt of a wolf as a cloak and armed with a mace and a knife. It seemed that the greenskin had focused on a more combat oriented role.

Talaena herself excelled at subtlety and stealth. Her slender and lithe form allowed her for bursts of speed that helped her escape threats if need to be, but she mostly used her acrobatic skill to run on fences and tightropes without a hitch. The Sin'Dorei had perfect balance which allowed them to perform the most difficult acrobatic tricks with a small amount of training. To aid in her craft, she had taken to engineering. Much to the consternation of the goblins that made up the horde, all her devices were gnomish in conception and design. She valued the loss of her limbs from a failure a lot more than the loss of money from overpaying the absent minded gnomes.

So far, apart from her paternal knives, she had an arm mounted crossbow that could stealthily take out enemies from a small distance or double up as grappling tool, a large number of smoke bombs that were not lethal or filled with cheap and poisonous gas, and a set of poison vials and crossbow bolts. Other than the crossbow, they were all on small and nifty utility belt on her pouch. Her cloak even doubled as a glider if she needed to reach a far away target from above or escape her pursuers.

As she knelt, she heard all her paraphernalia clink and jingle. Once she had been given her assignment she would need to rearrange her belt.

After a moment, Sylvanas arose from her throne and walked over to them. The goblin quivered and the shadowstalkers threw themselves prostate before their leader. Talaena and the Orc stood up.

"Shadowy Champions of the Horde. I am glad that all of you answered my summons." The voice seemed to echo in the cavernous hall.  
"You are the best in your field and are some of the stealthiest individuals that live in the Eastern Kingdoms." She walked up and stood before the Orc.

"Krog Shadewalker – the butcher of countless Alliance scum on the bloody fields of Arathi Basin" The orc bowed his massive head in response. Recognition from the ruler of a faction was always noteworthy. He saluted her smartly, his large gnarled green hand rising to his pate.

"Grimble Goldgrabber – renowned poison master of Booty Bay." The goblin stopped shaking and looked up. Talaena could not tell if it was a he or a she under the large and voluminous cloak.

Sylvanas stopped before Talaena and stared at her for a moment. The Banshee queen stood a head taller than her. Quick as lightning her hands took Talaena under her chin and held her face up. Her reflexes kicked in and she began to struggle. Then her eyes met with the Banshee Queen's. Any reflex action she was trying vanished almost instantly. She was like a rabbit staring into the eyes of a flying serpent. She noticed that the banshee Queen's hands were soft and cold. The long nail of her little finger was immaculately manicured. Not even the most upright of Silvermoon's nobility would find the Banshee Queen's beauty to be at fault. Cold and dead she might be, she could still inspire passions in the living, bringing them to ruin.

"Talaena Dawnbreeze. Part of a new generation of our most puissant kin. Combining technological prowess along with the drive to find her family once more, she is perhaps the most stealthiest being on this side of Azeroth. The eagerness with which she grants her favours is only matched the determination with which she accomplishes her assignments." When Sylvanas spoke to her, Talaena realised she was not listening to an echo. There were two voices coming out of her mouth. One would have been the voice her body was making while the other was being made by her soul. The Knights of the Ebon Blade spoke with similar voices – one embodied while the other disembodied.

The fact that Sylvanas had spoken so trivially of her daily life and her hopes and dreams shook Talaena to her very core. Her goal of finding her family had been told to no one she met on her travels. And yet the Dark Lady knew everything about what drove her. She had heard reports of the Shadowstalkers – the eyes and ears of the banshee queen. It seemed that they were as good as their reputation made them out to be. It terrified her to know that there were such agents within the horde, keeping an eye on personages that were brought to their attention.  
She realised what the term Banshee Queen now meant.

She let her go. Talaena reflexively rubbed her chin and jaw to get rid of the cold feeling.

"My loyal Death Stalkers. The best of our kind in the art of assassination and bringing a silent death to the enemies of the forsaken." She went back and sat on her throne.  
"I mean to show you something. Apothecaries, if you would please."

From the shadows behind the throne a pair of apothecaries walked out, One was pushing a cart filled with surgical tools and vials upon vials of liquid lay along with a bunch of pipes connected to the other cart. On the second cart was a board, on which lay a weakly moving figure. Talaena assumed that it was an Ooze that was being experimented upon.  
When the board was raised upright, she could not help but shudder.

On it lay a human, or what had once been a human. It's body below it's lungs had been completely removed, along with it's arms at the shoulder. It's hair gone and it looked smooth as a new borne babe. It's skull had been surgically cut open to expose it's brain tissue and it's eyes had been sutured shut. Drool dripped from it's mouth almost continuously. The only reason Talaena realised that it was a man was because of the flatness of the chest.

Bile rose bitter in her throat at the sight. It was all she could do to compose herself. She had seen similar horrors in the dungeons of the Lich King but that was for a monster who had committed genocide and intended to wipe life off the face of Azeroth. This was in the heart of the Undecity.

Sylvanas continued as if the horrific thing before their eyes was nothing different than a piece of parchment she had found. "You may have heard that the Forsaken have suffered some minor setbacks in making our attack on the Alliance territories south of Silverpine. I believe that I have found the reason for that." She pointed to the Apothecary.

The shrivelled undead apothecary spoke. "We lost contact with our outpost at Tarren Mill over two months ago. Shortly thereafter, we sent our Deathstalkers to investigate. We found that an alliance army was gathering at Southshore and Tarren Mill had been razed to the ground. Some of our brave agents managed to stick around for a while to find more valuable intelligence." At this point his jaw dropped down to the floor. With a rickety motion he picked it back up and pushed the bone into place. Immediately he continued.

"Apologies Dark Lady, it can't be helped. We found strange ships moored off the shoreline. Since we forsaken do not need to breathe we simply went over there to investigate. Apart from a single ship which had been burned to it's hull, the others were full of dead humans being feasted upon by Murlocs. We found this one alive in a locked cabin and brought it back to find out what went on. It shall explain."

The Apothecary went back to his colleague and nodded. The other one jammed an enchanted instrument into the human's brain. It mumbled something. The speaker asked the thing on the board.

"Please state your name and profession." It was a question asked in Common.

"T-this one's name is Tristan. It was once the captain of a trade fleet from Bordelaux." The drool slobbered off it's tongue.

"What was the last thing you were carrying during your current voyage?" The banal tone of the apothecary's voice sent shivers down Talaena's spine.

"This one was carrying six hundred mercenaries from Tilea to take part in a campaign. It was paid by a High Elf." It whimpered.

"Now now, I did not ask you about who paid you to bring them did I? You wouldn't want me to take away the tongue you kissed your wife with did you?" The apothecary was cheerful as he said that. Talaena's bile was now at the root of her mouth. It was all she could do to not retch.

"P-please M-master, I want to see my wife and children." The thing said, and tears trickled down it's shut eyes.

"It, my dear, it wants to see it's wife and children." The Apothecary corrected the experiment gently. "Now I am going to have to punish you for your insolence, but you seem to have impressed my friends here. Which tooth do you want me to pull out?"

"S-Sorry master. It forgot it's place. It will not happen again." The experiment slobbered and wept.

"Thank you Apothecary. You may take the specimen away. It seems that it upsets the balance of our Blood Elven friend here." Sylvanas' voice cut through the aura of dread that was pooling in the room.

"Now, you may have noticed some of the details are a bit hazy, but the Royal Apothecary Society is quite thorough. There is no mistake in our investigation." Sylvanas got up, and the room shrank a little in the shadow of her full stature.

"The Alliance has been sending foreign mercenaries and criminals who loot and plunder innocent Horde towns. They did it to Taurajo. They did it to Tarren's Mill, and they will not stop until we can defeat them and cast down their their walls. The world hates us. It wants us to fall and perish. So we must hate back. We must fight viciously until we raise our banners over the ruins of their cities. We cannot show any mercy to them. For the Horde!"

The last sentence had been spoken with a vehemence that had took Talaena by surprise. She joined in the cheers instinctively.

"Our agents have found out the location of the mercenaries who have wrought ruin to Tarren Mill and ruined Silverpine. They are have taken refuge in the hive of scum called the Kingdom of Alterac." She sighed.  
"If it were not winter, I would have taken an army there myself buried them in the cold and hard ground. I want you to go there in my stead and assassinate the human who dares to fight against the Banshee Queen."She sat down.

"My lady, what does this human look like like?" The orc asked.

"He is tall, lanky, dark haired and grey eyed. He may or may not have a beard. You will recognize him by his ostentatious clothes and many feathered cap. I want you to bring me back his head, feathered cap and all so that I may hang it upon the Standard of the Death Guard when I march forth to war once more." Sylvanas' pose was one of boredom as she recounted the man's physical features. The gleam in her eyes sharpened when she told them what she wanted to do with his head.

"When do we depart?" Talaena asked, her voice sounding little in the vastness of the hall.

"Immediately. You may leave."

Talaena walked down the stairs and away from the Royal Quarter. The rest of the rogues followed her lead. Even as she tried to focus on the mission, her mind kept returning to the experiment on the board, crying for it's – no _his_ – wife and children.

No matter how bad the Human she had been assigned to kill was, Talaena Dawnbreeze was going to give him a quick and painless death.

* * *

 _ **A/N Do let me know if certain characters are becoming too mary-sueish. Its something I am afraid I always wind up doing.**_

 _ **DIOS de la Nada, how do you do those inverted !? I have always wondered.**_

 _ **Aburg76, yeah bullying peasants is like a hobby for mercenaries.**_

 _ **Machicha, thats the thing, Orders from the top are vague.**_

 _ **guest, here you go**_

 _ **guest, yeah, I am interested in seeing what the Alliance does in BFA. Speaking of which I should start grinding the rep to get a void elf. And Sylvanas already invaded Gilneas so I am sure that Garrosh has seen her shenanigans with the plague and the Val'kyr.**_

 _ **medchista, yeah just you wait buddy.**_

 _ **CaptnDetergent, The thing with Serra is that high elven mages often spend their entire lives fighting for Ulthuan or they sit in the tower and conduct research. I hope this chapter was beginning to show the gaps Serra has in her magical knowledge, especially when it comes to more mundane matters. I will power cap her eventually. I have it all planned out.**_


	25. Chapter 25

**Morals and Miracles**

* * *

 _They should have been cheering. The charging horde of Norscans lay dying at their feet, and the mutated hounds that had followed in the wake of their horse riding masters had been impaled upon Tilean pikes like rabbits upon the spit. The screaming of dying horses and howling northmen filled the air about them. The smell of burning blackpowder mixed with the sweat, blood excreta and urine of the men who were either dead or dying. Crows and ravens circled overhead, patiently waiting for the men to depart so that they could continue their feeding. To the birds the world did not exist beyond the bloody fields by the sea coast of Southern Bretonnia where Erich and his Mercenaries had made their stand and repelled the Norscans with terrifying efficiency. No painting or work of literature could ever reproduce the awfulness of the battlefield at it's close. Perhaps he and they were overcome by the horror of the battlefield. They had won, and their enemy lay dead or dying at their feet. No glorious song rose to their lips.  
Erich was alone in a sea of murmurs from the living, the dead and those that were between the two._

 _His eyes were fixed on two figures that still barred their path. One stood tall. Taller than him, taller than Sven. Taller than any human has the right to be. The other lay at it's feet bleeding and broken. Erich knew the figure that lay down on the ground. It was bald and wore a circlet of iron as was supposed to be worn by Warrior Priests in training. The voice of the body still rang in his air. It had challenged him at Pfeildorf, asking him which god he worshipped over all others. It had wept in the back of a baggage cart when the owner of it had his world come crashing down upon his head. It had laughed in seedy taverns and admonished fellow mercenaries when a jest had gone too far. It had belonged to Brother-Aspirant Phillip. A man who had called upon his god only to meet silence._

 _What had possessed the man to answer the summons of the Marauder Warlord he could not know. Perhaps it was the desire to die in combat against the great bane of mankind. Perhaps he had assumed that Sigmar would aid him in his darkest hour. Maybe it was simply the rush of battle making him think that he was invincible. Warrior Priests were trained combatants, but for all their powerful weapons, and faith, they were rarely taught to think straight. A Warrior Priest's power flowed through his faith, not through his tactical acumen. If they were bested by a foe, it was because their faith was not great enough._

 _There was something about the Cult of Sigmar that had always galled Erich. Fanaticism and rage made a heady mix in the mind of men, no matter how base or noble their station. The same fanaticism that made men fearless and unbreakable in the midst of battle was also used outside it to persecute without reason. Religious turmoil was no stranger in the Empire. It was something his father had taught him long ago. No matter what was to happen, Erich had to use to mind, and never his heart. The heart lived in the present. The mind analysed the past and saw the future. They could not succumb to rage, no matter how righteous it may be. They were Myrmidians, and the Goddess had taught man reason._

 _Reason was why man had risen above the ashes of a world where Dwarfs and Elves were in decline. It would free them from the clutches of the Dark Gods. They targeted the weakness of the human heart, promising all its desires and more, only at the small price of servitude. It was the cancer that had consumed the hearts of men until all was left was the clarion call of battle which echoed in the dark laughter of thirsting gods. Reason, properly applied and mercifully administered would free mankind from the lash of Chaos. One day, humanity would be free from it's shackles of blind faith, and the Dark Gods would tremble._

 _Perhaps it was Reason that told Erich to walk towards the battered, bloody and bruised body of his friend. Reason suggested that the Marauder Warlord had been in the thick of the fighting in that cumbersome plate armour for the entire day. He had run around the battlefield taking skulls for the Skull Throne. The fight with the Almost Warrior Priest wielding a hammer meant that the armour was caved in at several points. Erich could easily dodge the swings of the massive two headed axe the Warlord carried. All he had to do was get behind the warrior and stab it in the ankle or calf. A severed tendon would mean that the massive trunk-like legs would not be able to support the armoured bulk of the warrior. He would fall down under the weight of his body and his thick plate armour._

 _Erich's men parted before him like the insubstantial smog that choked Nuln. Their murmurs were like the buzzing of insects and Erich noted that their faces seemed fuzzy as if they were just the background of a painting that he was observing from afar. They did not matter. Not where he was going at least. The awful power of destiny clung to his bones like a chill. No matter how much he thought, he could not shake the feeling that this had all happened before._

 _Reason dictated that he should be trembling with fear. Yet he was not. His training as a swordsman, first started by his father who wanted to make his son a knight, and then continued by a large number of bravos and duellists in Tilea and Estalia had taught him the actual meat of single combat. Bretonnians and the Nobles of the Empire harped on about honour and glory in a duel. The truth was their was neither. Especially on the battlefield. At it's most raw, it was about killing or at the very least defeating your opponent in a way that left no doubt as to who was the victor. Erich had been observing the Warlord fighting throughout the day, first among the Bretonnian Knights, then among their peasantry, and finally with Phillip. In contrast the warlord would not know how strong or weak Erich was. He would be tired, overconfident and dismissive of his opponent. Between these six pillars, he would erect a hangman's scaffold from which the foe would hang._

 _Erich had thought this battle through even before it had begun. All he had to do was put his plan into action._

 _As he approached the Chaos warrior, he withdrew his sword from it's scabbard. The ancestral blade of the Von Peipers glittered in his hand. Forged by Dwarfs, with the entire treasury of the Peiperschloss being traded to Karak Norn as the price, it was a blade made for a battle just like this. It's weight felt right in his hand. Ten paces from the Marauder Warlord, he stopped and raised his sword in a salute. The bulky warrior raised his axe - crimson on both ends from the blood - in return. It was a salute a warrior made to another. Except Erich was not a warrior. He was here to win._

 _To his surprise, the body of Brother-Aspirant Phillip moved a little. It would seem that he was still alive after his battle with the Marauder Warlord. Most people would have been cleaved in two along with their plate armour if they had been struck the same way he had been. Yet, he clung on to life so desperately. A pang of sympathy burst in Erich's heart. The man should be dead by all accounts, yet he hung on to life waiting for a response from his god that would in all probability never come. If he had been a poet, Erich would have composed a poem that would have immortalised Brother-Aspirant Phillip forever, or until it was invariably suppressed by the Church of Sigmar._

 _The figure turned towards him from it's place on the ground and looked towards him. Phillip's face looked sharply in focus. It seemed more real than the ground on which he lay._

" _Erich." The prostate body spoke._

" _Erich, wake up. The Sun rises in an hour_."

* * *

Erich opened his eyes. The world outside was dark, and a small lantern burned in his room, illuminating everything with a small orange glow. His belt buckle reflected the light from the flickering lantern and looked like a naked flame dancing on the post of the bed. It flickered and twisted, mimicking the light in the lantern as though it was following the latter in a dance. He yawned and scratched his head. The dream was fading away into the mists of his mind, and for a moment he was not sure if what he saw before him was the real world or something his mind had conjured up in the depths of his sleep.

Another shuddering knock on the door brought him to his senses. This was definitely not a dream. The smell of the burning oil and texture of the blanket scratching against his chest was all to real. As if to lend credence to this line of thinking, A voice rose from the other side of the door.  
"Captain Erich, wake up. It is time for your early morning exercises."  
The boom of Brother-Aspirant Phillip's voice was unmistakable.

"Give me a minute. I need to get dressed." Erich mumbled. With an effort that seemed superhuman he got up and shrugged. He stumbled to the basin and dunked his head in the cold water for a moment. The shock of the cold water hitting his face electrified his nerves. All his drowsiness and the last remnants of his dreamlike state disappeared under the gentle caresses of melted snow. Erich felt alive.

The day after he had bullied the peasant Rabble from Alterac into surrendering, Lady Swiftarrow and Caledra had cut away his bandages. To their surprise he had healed completely. While he had enjoyed them poking and prodding his shoulders, chest and stomach, they had eventually left.

That day had been busy with nearly two thousand people moving into the town. Half of them were women and children. They reminded Erich of the smallfolk of the empire more than the Bretonnian peasantry. There was a spark of defiance in their eyes instead of the animal cowardice that bretonnians often displayed. It meant that they would fight instead of flee. Even if they did not know it, the people of Alterac had the spark of killer instinct in them.

Most of his men were elated with the prospect of staying in a town with actual women. Erich was confident that his men would not start raping or harassing them, but he worked out a plan with Lady Swiftarrow, Hans and Caledra. It gave the Sentinels the power to prosecute any person living in the town on the spot.

The Night Elven Sentinels towered over his men, and the fact that they could move with a dizzying speed and were more accurate with their long bows made the men think twice on any harebrained ideas to relieve their boredom.

Erich finally finished putting on his long duster and gloves and extinguished the lantern. His senses were at their peak right now. The texture of the rich leather of his gloves felt right in his hand as he unlocked the door and walked out. Phillip was standing outside wearing similar clothes for cold weather. A long overcoat, heavy gloves and thick breeches. He saluted Erich.

Erich acknowledged the salute and walked out. The guards at the inn – Hans' boys with their halberds were dozing off in the pre dawn gloom. They heard the sound of footsteps and quickly shook off their drowsy haze.

"Halt, who goes there!" One of them shouted into the empty street.

Erich put a hand to his head. "Behind you lad."

The guard looked back and yelped a little before saluting. "Captain. I did not know it was you coming out of the inn." His companion meanwhile stood at attention, whether it was from petrification or just maintaining proper décor, Erich did not know.

"Good work lad. We will make a guard out of you yet." He patted the two of them on their shoulders and walked out into the snowy streets of Strahnbrad.

"Same place?" Phillip enquired. Erich nodded. This would be a busy hour.

An entire week where the population of the town had increased five fold had done a number on the streets. Over half the houses had people living in them, and some of the more dilapidated buildings had been cannibalized to rebuild the ones that were more sound. Piles of roughly hewn stone had been dragged to the many breaches in the wall. In a month's time the town would be habitable again. Some of the men and women were selling things around the fountain, which was slowly becoming the centre of the town. The Town Hall was close by, and the circular avenue in front of it was an excellent spot for hawkers.

Right now the hawkers and petty shopkeepers were asleep. They would be up and about soon, selling their pitiful wares to Erich's soldiers. He had a niggling doubt that his men were being overcharged massively by the people of Strahnbrad, but there was nothing to be done. Being cut off from the world during winter meant that prices would steadily increase over time. The laws of supply and demand would make it happen. Like everything else, human greed was a force of nature no less potent than Stormfels' rage on the seas.

And the two people to thank for all this were Lieutenant Melrick and Sergeant Littorio.

Melrick had been infuriated at the entire thing. He had not been informed and Erich had dumped the entire logistical operation on him. The man grumbled and threatened and cajoled Erich until he finally accepted what was being asked of him and got to task. For all his grumbling, the man had been an efficient taskmaster. He divided the non working population of Alterac into two different segments. They would be given different parts of the town to work on. The faster they would rebuild, the more time they would have to settle into the town. Monetary recompense would be provided when the snows melted.

A Merchant Prince had told Erich long ago, that the world runs on the promise of money. The man was assassinated the next week by his creditors, but for some reason it had stuck with him. Now he was seeing it in action for the first time. Nearly a sixth of the town's buildings would be destroyed as a result of Melrick and Littorio's plan. The two of them working together made a surprisingly good team. Littorio handled all the actual design and planning decisions while Melrick worked out the finer details. Between the two of them – and the large amount of food the peasants had brought in from their caves – the town was was as snug as a squirrel during the winter.

As dawn stole over the Alterac Mountains, Erich's heart rose. There was something poetic about watching the town beginning to hum with life. From their perch on one of the lower foothills, they would have a view of when the sun would steal over their heads and illuminate the town. The entire scene reminded him of the curtains of the play rising. At this distance, the town looked like a miniature theatre set, and the roads into and out of the town looked like ribbons holding the entire thing together. Climbing up to this perch for an hour in the pre dawn gloom was worth it just for this moment alone.

Tears came unbidden into his eyes when the sun reached the clock tower of the town hall. A pair of banners hung from the bell tower. One of them was the Blue and Gold of the Alliance, while the other was his standard. The banner of Solland greeted the rising sun from the highest point in a town, as it had done in ages past. No man of the Empire would ever see the blessed scene, and none would share in the memories of a land long dead.

He finally understood why his father had been so obsessed with the banner and the name of Solland. As a child Erich had thought that Solland was dead, and it should be remembered the same way one's ancestors were. His father had thought differently. He had taught Erich the customary way of greeting nobles in the Sollander manner, taught him the lays of Solland, a song that was once sung by smallfolk in the now abandoned villages and vales of the land. He had never understood the point of it all until much later. The land of the Sun lived within their hearts. As long as they remembered the sun shining on them, Solland would not die. It lived in his heart, and the heart of a man he had thought heartless. Thoughts of happier memories with his sire came to Erich's mind. Beyond all the shouting and cursing of him being worthless, he remembered the tender care of a father raising his son alone.

"Captain, how goes the training of the new meat?" Phillip asked, sitting beside him. It was Phillip who had discovered this spot and the two of them would often walk out here to enjoy a bird's eye view of the entire valley in which Strahnbrad was located.

"Oh well, they complain and complain. You know how it is. Most of them have only held meatcleavers and threatened merchants from what I can tell." Erich shrugged. They were the perfect mixture of desperation and grit he could use to make real soldiers.

"So how badly are they taken being broken down to nothing?"

"You know how it is. Between me, Hans and Luigi, they all believe they are worthless and useful only for making fertiliser."

"Do you ever think that being too hard on them might cause some of them to break?"

"Heh, I used to think like that before. I have seen what happens to mollycoddled nobles taking to the field. You know what happened to the Ducal Cavalry of Remas?"

"No, I don't."

"This is a tale Tileans tell prospective soldiers to scare them off into more productive ventures. You see, living in a city state is just like living in the empire. You don't have too much to do with your lives, and then you see well fed and well armoured soldiers marching in formation, looking oh so splendid in their liveried uniforms. So you have a lot of boys whose beards are barely beginning to grow want to become soldiers." Erich grinned. That was exactly why he had wanted to become one. The Countess' guard had looked so splendid in their dark Nuln Plate and massive Greatswords. He wanted to become one. After all these years, he had become a soldier, but it was not all he expected.

He continued. "So these Tilean cities are not like the Empire where there are people who live under the fear of beastmen appearing from the woods and burning everything down. They think warfare is a fine sport to indulge in, like bullying halflings. Veterans know that under all the talk of glory there lies the fact that killing is a merciless and soul destroying task, especially if you fight someone who is a person just like you. The Smart Merchant Princes conscript all these kids and make them serve a two year term as militia. Now they don't use the militia in combat. That would kill off the city's most productive population. All they do is drill under the watchful eyes of Sergeants who tell them how worthless and useless they are while they turn them into good and obedient soldiers." He yawned.

"So after those two years, most people have their fill of soldiering and they return back to their quiet lives. Those who actually have what it takes to be career soldiers move on to join mercenaries or remain in the city militias where they parade and look splendid – therefore becoming bait to catch the next set of young boys with."

"That sounds devious." Phillip said after Erich's long winded explanation of militias.

"No, it is actually a great amount of genius. Tileans and Estalians have a huge amount of money so they can always hire people to fight for them. Their real treasure is their people, so they keep them honed and ready to fight, but would rather protect them from being hurt."

"As opposed to the empire where Karl Franz has more bodies than he has money to pay with them." Phillip replied as realisation dawned on him.

"Exactly. Both try to preserve what is precious to them, while utilising the resource they have in extra abundance. Which is why Elector Counts are loathe to deploy full armies of State Troops in even the most dire circumstances. When you see an entire army on the march, you can be assured that the Empire is facing a massive threat. Blackpowder is rare in the empire, while bodies are cheap. In the south, men are rare while they have enough gold to wage war with." Erich finished his philosophy of training.

"So you are breaking them down to make sure that they will become better warriors?"

"No, goodness no. I intend to rebuild them as soldiers. You saw how people fight here. Their tactics do not extend beyond a wild charge and bellowing. Trained soldiers in these parts are worth their weight in gold." As he finished, he remembered that while he wanted to become a soldier he had other hopes and dreams. The men who would be broken down by him harboured similar thoughts. The optimist in him wanted to preserve their innocence. The realist in him knew that breaking them down and rebuilding them would make them something beyond what they currently were.

The Battlefield was a harsh place. Honour and Glory were concepts that were hard to translate when the pike line brace in front of a horde of marauding greenskins or a rival battalion of human soldiers. People would lose their minds eventually from all the killing. Breaking down new recruits before rebuilding them would shield them from the worst of it. The people who fought at the front would need nerves of steel. He would make them those nerves.

 _Just like father had done for me, and I hated him for it._

"Captain, are you alright?" Phillip's voice brought him back from a darker trip down his childhood memories. Erich did not have time for introspection. Not while there was still work to be done.

"Brother-Aspirant Phillip. Have you ever seen a miracle?" He asked casually. This would be red meat to a priest. It would also provide him with some stimulating discourse. Myrmidia encouraged her followers to fight fanaticism with reason. If all else failed Phillip would walk off in a huff.

The burly man sat next to him. A sad smile played on his lips. In the glow of the early morning light, the Would-be Warrior Priest looked like a living ember of divine power. His body glowed with a golden light that reflected off the mountainsides and bounced off his shaved scalp. Erich had seen the man in both battle and at the drinking table. His fanaticism in battle was only matched by his plain demeanour in his cups. The simple man of faith had wormed his way into the heart of the company by being a living extension of his faith's tenets. A man who was not a hypocrite was rarer than a Runefang, and Phillip was not the former.

"The _Deus Sigmar_ states that miracles are Sigmar's will reaching down to aid the faithful. This is something the God of Mankind does for his most faithful and those that follow his tenets with his name on their lips and in their heart. Similar actions by other gods are heretical and only a pale imitation of what Sigmar does for his faithful. We are encouraged to follow the examples of the faithful and burn the heretics who use foul sorcery to trick the masses from following the light of Sigmar." This was delivered in a booming voice fits for the sermon's pulpit. "So no, I have not seen a real miracle according to the teachings of Sigmar."

There was a pause. The cold wind of the mountain whistled around both their ears. Erich was glad for the layers of clothes he was wearing. It was adept at keeping the cold out.

"You remember that time in Bretonnia, when we were fighting the Norscans ten years ago?" Phillip ask.

"How could I forget. I made a lot of money and then lost it again." Erich grinned.

"When you stepped forth over me to challenge Surtha Styrborn, I was angry." His voice was solemn. "I wanted to die. I wanted to stand before Sigmar's halls and ask him why I had been abandoned."

"You picked the wrong person for that Phillip. I am not sure that being sacrificed to the dark gods would bring you to Sigmar's halls." Erich joked.

Phillip smiled in response. "Have you wondered what lies beyond this life Captain?"

"No, and I do not intend to find out anytime soon." Erich got up. Asking this to Phillip had been a mistake. The man might be as honest as a dwarf oath, but he was as blunt and one too. Trust a Warrior Priest to turn a poignant moment into a theological argument. "Lets go back. My new sword should be ready soon."

The climb down from the hillock was easier than climbing up. In a few minutes they had slid down the distance and were on the road to Strahnbrad.

"Erich, do you remember how you defeated Surtha Styrborn?" Phillip asked.

"No, I don't Brother-Aspirant Phillip." What a stupid question that was. It was over a decade ago. Erich could barely remember what happened an hour ago if he was drunk.

"You know, the funniest thing about the Ulricans is that their doctrine of miracles is almost the same as the Sigmarite church's. They say that true Miracles are only granted by Ulric and everything else is an imitation born of sorcery." Phillip said vaguely.

"What do you mean Phillip." Erich stopped and turned to look at the bald priest.

"A man's faith is another's heresy. I saw a miracle that day I almost died Erich." His eyes shone as he finished his sentence.

"What?"

"There was no way you could have defeated Surtha Styrborn Erich. I fought him. The man was not encumbered by his heavy plate at all. The entire day he had spent killing bretonnians and at the end of it, the bastard had not even broken into a sweat. He toyed with me before nearly killing me in a single backhanded swoop."

"Nonsense. I had a plan."

"Your Goddess teaches you that no plan survives contact with the enemy Erich. Think. How did you defeat the Marauder Chieftain." Phillip said as the two of them kept walking. They could almost make out the guards at the gate of Strahnbrad. By next month, Littorio and Luigi hoped to repair the gate itself.

Erich stopped. He did not – _could not –_ remember. The only thing he remembered was the giant warrior bleeding from a dozen different places in his crimson and bronze armour lying at his feet, and Phillip looking at him with wonder and fear.

"I witnessed a miracle that day, Captain. It troubled me for a time, but a man who gives away his money to those that need it is a better paragon of humanity than a priest shrieking about damnation from a raised pulpit in an ornate cathedral, no matter what god he worships." He yawned. "I failed to live up to the teachings of my god. That is why he abandoned me. You on the other hand - "

"Halt, who goes there?" The sentry at the gate challenged them.

"Your mother and her big breasted whore friend you stupid piece of canal scum. Can't a man have a conversation in peace here?" Erich yelled in response.

"Oh shit, its the captain and Brother Phillip." The man said as recognition dawned on him. "Just doing my job sir."

Erich grunted in response as the two of them passed by the sentry. He turned to face Phillip inside the the town. "What were you saying Phillip?"

"You should see to your new sword Erich. I have much to meditate on."

Erich huffed and walked away. Trust a sigmarite priest to speak forever without having any clear answers.

* * *

Talaena watched the townspeople of Strahnbrad wake up from their early morning. Even with her gnomish magnification devices it was hard to tell who or what they were. They had been scouting the town of Strahnbrad for two days, memorising the patrols and identifying weak points. The good news was that there were plenty of the latter in the town. The crumbling human town, although slowly being repaired was weeks away from being a challenging place to infiltrate. Blind spots, badly lighted areas and ramshackle buildings existed. The outer perimeter had more holes in it than rusty chainmail. She was sure that under the cover of darkness, the five of them could easily walk into the town and infiltrate it.

What was worrying was the fact that they would be completely blind once they went in. The Deathstalkers were eager to carry out Sylvanas' command. Even now they were reconnoitring inside the interior of the town. While a dangerously bold move, the fact that the humans were busy training a massive number of people meant that the training field provided an easy ingress into Strahnbrad itself. The muddy and snowy field would hide their tracks and the houses right outside were abandoned and dark enough to hide in. If all went according to plan, they would move in tonight and conduct a more close inspection of the target.

Talaena had already marked on her map of Strahnbrad the possible locations of the Mercenary leader. After comparing an older map of Strahnbrad generously given to her by a Dark Ranger to the ramshackle collection of buildings populated by humans, she had zeroed in on two locations. The town hall and the Inn were the most habitable buildings, so they would infiltrate them and attempt to liquidate Alliance officers and personnel. It was a simple job. Talaena had infiltrated necropolises of the Scourge and even the Black Temple. An overcrowded town would be trivial – if all went according to plan.

Unlike other rogues who often trusted in their abilities to do escape and get the job done, Talaena prided herself on planning in advance. It had been her idea to study the patrol routes and wall breaches. It would allow them for a clear escape once their target had been eliminated. The plan was simple.

They would breach the Town hall first and kill any alliance personnel stationed inside and check if any of the corpses matched their quarry. Then they would proceed to the inn and infiltrate from the empty room in the western corner before clearing each room and ascertaining the target was eliminated and bagging proof as demanded by Sylvanas Windrunner.

When their target had been eliminated, they would escape from the closest unguarded wall section and run towards Andorhal. From there, it was a short ride to the Undercity where they would be rewarded and the poor fool's rotting head would fly atop the Deathguard's Royal Standard.

Thinking of the Undercity made Talaena sick. She had seen enough horrors during her time on outland and in northrend, not to mention in the aftermath of the destruction of the Sunwell where large numbers of elves had starved and become husks of what they had been before. Thankfully, She had taken the gift of Fel Magic to sustain her throughout that dark period of time to drive the hunger away. There had been no moral compunction. She was starving and Demonic magic had nourished her.

With the restoration of the Sunwell, she had lost her taste for demonic magic. As a rogue she had only needed a small amount of Fel magic and had never developed an addiction for it. Any ideas she might have entertained for more magical power had been quickly quashed when she had seen what had happened to the elves who had followed Kael'Thas into outland. No power was worth being enslaved to the burning legion.

And last week she had seen a similarly horrific scene play out in front of her eyes in a Capital of the Horde. Sylvanas Windrunner had wheeled up a human who had been experimented upon to become little more than a macabre curiosity kept alive for information on the strange mercenaries. The shock of the sight had nearly unhinged her. She still could not sleep properly. The weakly moving body assaulted her mind in the throes of sleep. The worst part about it was this was being done by a supposed ally.

She had admired the ruthlessness of the Forsaken who had gone from being a splinter group of the undead tenuously clinging on to the ruins of the Capital City to a major power in their own right. It called to the pride in the heart of the Sin'Dorei. They too had been abandoned by everyone and they too would ruthlessly claim their place in the sun at the expense of all that threatened Quel'Thalas and the Horde. The fact that the Forsaken were lead by one of the most celebrated Elven heroes who had valiantly defended their lands during their darkest hour only increased the kinship she felt with the Forsaken.

All that had vanished when she had seen the horror lying in front of her. At worst the human had been the captain of a ship moving his cargo on the order of his superiors. It would have been far better to have slit his throat and let his corpse get eaten by Murlocs. Instead he had been rescued from that fate and turned into something infinitely more horrific. The Royal Apothecary Society – filled with the brightest minds of Lordaeron and unchallenged by any ethical or moral concerns had made that poor brute something lower than even the most base insect.

Talaena was brought out of her reverie by the sounds of heavy footsteps falling behind her. Krog Shadewalker was far more stealthier than his massive bulk and heavy armour would suggest. She had often wondered how it was that Orc rogues seemingly seemed to melt away after an attack. Afte seeing Krog in action, she had no doubts to their abilities. He was the strongest and toughest member of the group, while she was the most dexterous and agile. They would make a good team working together.

"I have finished my task. It seems that the human patrols change at night time by the main fountains. We will have a window of half an hour where the town's interior is largely unguarded. The Town hall and tavern are a short distance away from each other that the side facing the wall is bereft of any humans." The orc grumbled and sat down beside her.

Talaena carefully noted down his information. This had all the makings of an excellent raid. A short quick dash after silencing the town hall would make for a near perfect entrance into the upper parts of the inns were the larger rooms were present. The human leader would be present at either one of them.

"Elf, we need to talk." Krog said.

"About what?"

"Grimble's off to relieve my position so now the two of us are alone." The orc's voice turned serious.

"What are you implying" If the orc had some ideas about having some fun with her she would castrate him.

"I am talking about the thing we saw in the Royal Quarter you stupid wench." The orc's massive hands balled into fists. It snorted at her implications.

"Oh, I see. What about it." Talaena was wary. It could be trick to take away her share of the reward. While she had her nightmares about the moving form of a lump of meat that was named Tristan, she nevertheless could always do with a bit of money. Honour among thieves was a concept rogues talked about but seldom put into action.

"The Warchief has a right to know about this. The horde shall never be dishonourable in war. We will not stoop down to the level of the Legion or the Scourge" The orc grumbled at her.

"Maybe he has approved of this. After all, the Dark Lady would not show us this information without informing the Warchief about it beforehand. If the Alliance is bringing mercenaries from strange lands to fight for them, it means that they have an advantage over us in the war. We need to be ruthless and make an example of them before the Alliance brings up more. You heard what it said. A High elf had sent them here to fight the Horde."

"What _he_ said you damn elf. That thing on the table was – _is –_ a person. At the very least the bastard deserves a clean death." The orc was trembling. "It doesn't matter if he is alliance scum. If we lose our honour, we are no better than what the Alliance thinks we are. We will win this war Blood Elf, and make no mistake. The humans have already been driven from the barrens and their navies are no match for ours. We will win this war and carve out our place in the world ravaged by the cataclysm, but we can never sacrifice our values for it." The orc lay down after his impassioned monologue, his massive chest rising and falling slowly.

"Why do you care orc? The alliance abandoned my people to die when we needed them the most. They put your people in internment camps to slowly wither away and die. If not for Thrall you would have been imprisoned even now." Talaena had gotten up from her position. While it was horrific, there was no doubt that Sylvanas had gained a valuable piece of intelligence. The recent successes of the Alliance in the field had only been through the presence of foreign mercenaries. If they could nip the successes of these fighters in the bud, the Alliance would be dealt a crippling blow. The Horde was less prepared than the alliance for an all out war for a long period of time. The only way they could win was if they had the initiative all the time.

The orc interrupted her. "I find it quite funny. My father fought in the Second War. The Horde which you so proudly serve burned down the forests of your homeland. You would have called us the dishonourable monsters that needed to be dealt with no matter the cost." He smiled grimly at her, flashing his huge tusks.

"That happened decades ago. The alliance is attacking all of us now. These mercenaries took Alliance gold. They deserve what is going to happen to them."

"You have no argument from me there. These mercenaries will be dealt with. They are no match for the valour of the horde. We fought to call Azeroth our home. A bunch of foreign mercenaries will be no match for the horde." He grimaced. "My only problem is with the methods our allies have been taking to combat this threat." There was a sense of sorrow about the orc rogue now as he continued.

"Ten years ago, I started to raise a family in the barrens with my mate. I have three children, and the youngest has not seen a single summer yet. I cannot forget the last thing the human said as he was wheeled away. As a father, the worst thing that can ever happen to me is being kept away from my children. What Sylvanas has done is evil to the core. Thrall would never have stood for it. Garrosh will not stand for it. Once we are done delivering the head to her, I am going to seek an audience with the warchief. I would appreciate it if you came with me."

"What makes you so sure that Garrosh will be abhorred by it?" Talaena asked. When the Orc had put it in terms of family, the enormity of the horror Sylvanas Windrunner had perpetrated hit close to home. She had lost her nearest and dearest relatives. Initially she had left Quel'Thalas to look for them and instead had become an adventurer.

"Garrosh Hellscream threw his own general off a cliff when the latter used a goblin mana device to destroy a peaceful school for druids in the Stonetalon mountains. He will not let something monstrous as experimenting on prisoners go unpunished. Yes, he might be short tempered and hot blooded, but underneath all that beats the heart of an Honourable Orc who wants to be a hero to his people just like his father was." Krog smiled grimly. "I am proud to call Garrosh Hellscream my Warchief."

"Very well, I will go with you once we are done here. I hope your trust in him is not misplaced Krog."

Just at that moment, Grimble returned. So intent was Talaena on the conversation that she had not heard the goblin. Goblins were stealthy creatures and as far as she knew Grimble might have been listening in to their conversation and could be planning to betray them at the undercity. A goblin with the name Goldgrabber did not invite much confidence.

"Well well well, what have we here?" The goblin stood between the two of them looking at both their faces with a shifty expression on his face. "You weren't trying to make off with my cut were ya?"

"You will get your cut once we deliver the head to Undercity you pest. Now, what did the Deathstalkers have to say?" The orc growled

"They say that the coast is clear. We can sneak into the town once the humans are done for the day. I could see the town hall from their location. It is a couple of streets away. If we avoid patrols it should be easy."

"What about civilians?" Talaena asked. A low body count would reduce their chances of being detected. Ideally the only people they would kill were alliance officers.

"Whatchya' talking about? They are all alliance. All enemies. We can take to the roof if there's too many of the suckers about. We use that gnomish contraption of yours to zipline across into the town hall and clear house. It will be easier than robbing the bank at Thunder Bluff. Easy come easy go"

"Very well, we will split up now and meet again at the wall entrance when the humans return to their homes. May the Sunwell watch over us all." She replied.

Grimble was gone in a flash. Krog waited until the goblin was out of eyesight and nodded at Talaena.

She knew what she had to do. All the intrigue would come later. Now she needed a good day's sleep in her warm cloak and be rested for the nights' actions.

After a bit of searching she found a small depression into the ground that was not that bad. Spreading the cloak over it, she found herself in a small and damp hole she could spend the next few hours dozing off.

As sleep stole upon her, Talaena realised that no matter what happened, her dream of returning to Silvermoon and moving up social ladders were put on hiatus.

Maybe she should have ignored the letter in her mail.

* * *

 ** _DIOS de la Nada, sorry to disappoint you. No tentacles or dragons yet._**

 _ **CaptnDetergent, Sylvanas negotiating with Erich would be something interesting to write about. But she would rather dunk him in a plague vat at this point.**_

 _ **Guest, Yes. According to End Times lore they are but the entire thing was such a massive clusterfuck that shat all over the spirit of the warhammer world to rush out Sigmarines that it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The Temple cities of the Slann being space ships was one of the few cool things in a mountain of shit.  
**_ _ **No. The Slann and lizardmen know that Amazons are supposed to be in Lustria as part of the great plan, so they allow them to live there, but they do fight against each other on occasion.**_

 _ **Guest, glad you enjoyed it.**_

 _ **Aburg76, Glad you liked it. Once you scratch past some of warcraft's more cartoony aspects you can find some grimdark stuff in there occasionally.**_

 _ **James Koach, One of the major challenges that I found in my original Mercs only PoV of the story was that the reader would not be able to find their influence on characters they had affected. Introducing Talaena served two purposes. Firstly it allowed me to show you a view of a horde faction's perspective to the Mercenaries' arrival and action on Azeroth. Between Peggy and Matthias Shaw, I had been able to show you a somewhat comprehensive view of what the Alliance thought of a bunch of strange mercenaries pulling repeated victories over the forsaken. I want to be able to explore that from the perspective of horde races as well.  
Secondly, it allowed me to showcase some themes of the Horde that I think Warcraft does very well, which is a bunch of misfits banding together to survive the big bad world out to get them. Sylvanas exhibits some of the darkest sides of the Horde. I want characters like Talaena and Krog to express some of the more positive sides of the horde as well.**_

 _ **Prince of Madness, Do note that I have matched Serra against trash mobs if I may use the technical terms. She will soon find that using magic in Azeroth has effects she did not anticipate, both on her psyche and her body.**_

 _ **DasPeas, Thank you for warning me. It is good to know that I am skirting the lines between OP and Mary Sue. Which is exactly I want to keep Serra before she learns to deal with the consequences of using power so recklessly.**_


	26. Chapter 26

**Training Day**

* * *

Erich panted as his lungs drew in more air. The muscles in his legs tensed and loosened at a steady rhythm as his boots crushed the small layer of frost that formed on the mud. His whole world was now measured in the steady beating of his heart, the rush of blood in his ears, the rise and fall of his chest and kiss of the wind rifling through his short hair. He felt more alive doing a simple exercise than he had expected. Training peasants was turning out to be a rewarding experience.

The person running immediately behind him was a man older than him, and far more wiry. Despite his small stature, the man had an intense scowl, a powerful set of lungs and was stubborn as a mountain goat. Gareth had all the makings of a good Sergeant. Even now he would dart back and 'encourage' stragglers to pick up the pace set about by Erich by chewing them out. After a week of constantly running, the stragglers who were initially in the scores were now only in groups of two or three. It was surprisingly good progress for a group of two hundred soldiers. There had to be a delicate balance. Too brutal and too fast would cause the men to collapse. Too leisurely and too slow would just make them bad soldiers when all was said and done.

After a while, Erich stopped when the tenth lap around the muddy encampment they called a training field was completed. He stopped and snapped his fingers. Sergeant Gareth shouted at the men once more and they began to file in ordered rows , twenty across and ten deep. From their lolling slack-eyed expressions and stiff movements, Erich deduced that they had been given a good workout. On the first day, nearly all of them lay down on the ground when they were at ease. Today they were just tired and sore. The most insignificant part of their training had ended and they had passed with flying colours. Tomorrow they would start using their weapons.

"Gentlemen, Good job. Starting tomorrow, you will only be running two laps." The cheer from the assembled men washed over him like a sea breeze. He continued, "You will be running two laps tomorrow because it will wake you up and get your blood flowing. After that, we will start drilling with weapons."

Another wave of cheers buffeted him. They had expected that they would be given a sword and shield on their first day and get to work hammering each other. From what he had heard from Gareth and the other veteran warriors, that was how they had all trained for their lives. As it was they departed in good cheer on that day. As usual, some of the Gilneans and people from Stormwind often came to look at them, along with a large number of children who stared at their older brothers and fathers with big eyes.

Mostly it was laughter and derision. On the second day, a couple of them shouted, "That's right Alterac, you just keep on running away like you did during the second war." The two hundred men had stopped running and had walked up to the people from Stormwind and had surrounded them. Erich had stopped running and had joined them. One of the was staring down the person from Stormwind. "Shouldn't you be building the statues of your king now that he returned home with his horde friends, Stormwind boy?" By this time a crowd of onlookers had started to gather around the scene. Angry murmurs passed through the street.

Stormwind replied, "At least he came back to the Alliance to lead us to instead of being cajoled by mercenary scum like you did."

"All of you, back to running or starting tomorrow it's twenty laps instead of ten." The effect was nearly instantaneous, nearly all of them looked at Erich, then at the Stormwind soldier and left. The only ones standing there were one of the trainees, the Stormwind soldier, two of his compatriots and Erich.

"What the hell are you are you doing? Get back to your unit and keep running!" Erich shouted at him. The man had turned to leave.

"Just slither away you snake. Maybe sell your mother and sister to the horde too while you are at it." The soldier from Stormwind mocked.

What happened next was only a minute long.

The Trainee turned and ran back aiming a punch at the Stormwind soldier, but one of his compatriots stepped in to tackle the enraged man. Erich watched dispassionately as the man was stuck in a headlock and struggled.

"Keep your dogs on a leash mercenary. The king does not care for feral mutts." The soldier told him blithely.

An uppercut to the back of the man's ear shut him up. He looked dazed as he turned around to face Erich. A moment's confusion appeared on his face before he took up a defensive posture. It was all the opening Erich had needed.

He had been involved in his fair share of lover's quarrels and street brawls with rapiers and powder. An unarmed braggart wearing a lion's tabard was not a challenge.

A punch in the man's gut knocked out the wind from him and he wheezed as the air pushed out of his lungs. With a quick skipping movement, Erich brought the knife out of boot and straddled the fallen soldier. "Where is your king?" He asked conversationally as he let his knife hover over the man's eyeball.

"I-in Stormwind."

"Where are we?" Erich asked even as he grabbed the soldier by the throat.

"In Alterac."

"Who is in command here?"

"C-Captain Dawnbreeze." the man stammered, his face turning white as the knife tickled the bridge of his nose.

"That's where you are wrong. Try again. If you do not answer correctly you lose an eye." He smiled as sweetly as he could. "Now, answer me, brave Warrior of Stormwind, who is in command here."

"You are." The man's face was now beginning to turn purple.

"And what happens when you insult or try to assault your superior officers?" Erich questioned.

"I- I get punished."

"So, which eye should I put it in. After all, a noble and proud servant of the king like you should have the luxury of choice."

"P-please, I can't..." The man's eyes began to roll over and tried to inhale and exhale furiously. All it did was launch a large amount of snot at Erich's hands.

"Disgusting." Erich said, as he got up. "Get your friend out of here. The next time someone tries to assault my trainees, their heads are going to be on display next to the ogres. Know your place. It belongs in the mud where I have left you lying."

The soldiers hastened to obey. They hoisted their comrade on their shoulders and dragged him away. Erich waved them crowd of civilians that had gathered dispersed and went back to their tasks. The only two people left presently were Erich and the older trainee.

"Sir, are you alright?"

"As right as rain. Why did you stay?"

"You might have needed someone at your back."

"Smart thinking, but are you good in a fight?"

The man grinned. "I fought here a long time ago against the Alliance when they invaded Alterac. I was a young man then, but my hair is starting to fall."

"Do you have a name balding-man?" Erich asked.

"Gareth."

It had been the only serious breach of discipline yet. And he had gained a decent Sergeant out of it. Most of the men he had been dealing with were green boys. A seasoned warrior like Gareth, no matter how mediocre would always have their obedience. And the man liked barking orders. He would get famously with Hans.

Right now, Erich had only one thing on his mind. The forge. The walk back to the forge was different now than the first time that he had visited it. The streets were filled with the sound of footsteps and hundreds of voices murmuring instead of just the wind. Strahnbrad was a shabby town but it seemed to be alive. The few people that recognized Erich smiled or nodded at him. They had seen him accept their surrender. They must also have known that he had allowed them to live in their town. All that weight of responsibility suddenly made Erich feel uncomfortable. He walked through the streets past the smiling and jostling crowd looking for the forge. The heat coming from it was being felt here out on the street.

The two dwarfs were arguing with each other and the gnome about something. Erich could not understand what they were saying between their strong accents and the massive din that came from the bellows and the clanging of the hammers outside. In the light of the forge, all three of them glowed orange as if they were bathed in hellfire. It was a disquieting thought. The blade that he had so specifically asked them to make was nowhere to be seen.

"Excuse me, my good dwarfs. I was told you had something for me."

"Och, we will get to that when we do laddie, now me brother an' I were 'avin a bet about ye. He thinks yer a a sissy boy who is too skinny to be a good fighter, while I think yer like one of them rogues who try to fight dirty. Which one is it?" The three figures turned to look at him, their eyeballs glowing orange as they looked at him with eager faces.

"What? Why wasn't I told there was a bet about me?" Erich asked.

"Nae lad, now that would be cheating. So which is it. Are ye a sissy boy or are ye a backstabber who likes to do it from behind?" The dwarfs looked at him grimly.

Faced with the intensity of their glares Erich chose what looked like the better option. "I think I am the latter." He replied weakly.

The three figures burst out into laughter. "Aye, he loves doing it from behind, Har Har har!" The laughter was getting annoying.

Erich cleared his throat. "My sword if you would please."

The dwarf brought out a thin looking rapier with an emblazoned hilt. The sword glowed with a light that was not quite a reflection of all the orange heat of the forge. It seemed bluer somehow. Erich picked it up. It felt as light as a feather in his hand. Erich swung it around his right arm, and then his left, feeling the balance. For all their drunken jests, these dwarfs were better sword makers than the ones that had made his father's blade. The balance was perfect. The sword was perched straight on his little finger with only the slightest hints of wobbling. Erich brought out his scabbard and placed the sword in. He had not felt this excited in years.

"Och lad, give it a good swing and let us know how it feels." The dwarf said.

Erich nodded. With a slow and deliberate pace, he brought out the sword with his right hand and adopted a estalian diestro's fencing pose. In contrast with the large hand-and-a-half sword wielded by knights of the Empire or Bretonnia, the Diestro's blade was a fine and sophisticated weapon that was best paired with a knife to disarm the opponent. Careful of his footwork, Erich launched a blazing set of thrusts and stabs at an imaginary opponent, careful to keep his grip tight enough for parries and feints. To his surprise, the air did not seem as hot as before. Encouraged by this, Erich spent the next few minutes playing with his sword, dodging, slashing and stabbing with both his sword and his knife. At the end, he leapt up and performed a downward thrust before landing, almost catlike on his feet and returning to the pose he had started from. The next exhalation had never felt so good.

"Lad, do ye always jump about like a cat on the battlefield?" The dwarf asked him solemnly.

"Of course not. This is something for showing off to the ladies. The real battlefield is something quite else entirely." Erich smiled.

The dwarfs smiled in return. "Och, spoken like an old warrior lad. Even the sword likes ye. We put the essence of Alterac in the sword, just for ye. She seems to like yer handling of her."

Erich was puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Well this place is just as cold as can be south of Northrend. So when we heard ye wanted a new sword, we imbued the blade with the spirit of a frost elemental. So the blade likes how you handle her, and she consents to lending her wintry aid to your thrusts." The dwarf said.

Then the three of them tittered again.

"Was this a joke?" Erich raised an eyebrow.

"Well the last part came out as one."

"Oh, I see. Thank you for this blade, master dwarfs." Erich bowed to them, and they nodded in return.

"We made the hilt just as ye wanted it to be." The dwarf said as Erich walked out of the building.

Erich made to look at the sword. It was a simple orb made of gold, and when he looked closely, the words 'Sol Invictus' were etched on the side just like they had been in his father's sword. Suddenly this sword was more than a fancy toy for him to play with. It was a priceless heirloom made anew and imbued with the spirit of the mountains where he was training new men. The fact that it was free was an added bonus.

"Oh, there is one final question." He said as he stood in the doorway.

"Eh, What's that lad?" The dwarf asked.

"This sword. Can it cool my beer?" Erich joked.

The pair of dwarfs burst out laughing once more as Erich left themselves

Erich turned to leave for the tavern. On his way out, he looked at the blacksmiths closely. After all, he could dawdle for he had all the time in the world. Unlike the blacksmiths in the old world who would work in small groups making the same thing, every blacksmith around him was busy making the same thing. There must have been fifty or more of them in total. Fully half of them were busy turning iron into steel. They occupied one end of an abandoned street. This was incredibly interesting. He walked by them, looking at what each one of them was doing.

Men and women worked on a specific part of the process. At least three of them were busy melting down the iron ore. He kept observing them from a distance. This was something rather unique. He had heard that dwarfs used to make steel this way, where a dwarf would only do the thing he was good at and leave the rest to others. This was efficient. This was smart. This is how they would be making things in Nuln.

Near the end, a man and a woman were helping each other make ingots of steel. The man – a well muscled man with golden hair slowly turned over the pot of molten iron into the small furnace while the woman added flux and coal to start forging the steel. Erich turned to leave when the man said, "Hey captain. Got your new sword?"

Erich spun around immediately. "Wait, Sven is that you?"

The burly Nordlander smiled brightly at him and nodded vigorously. He was almost unrecognisable in his soot covered body and sweaty face. That bright smile was the same however. Erich knew that the man did not shy away from doing hard labour, but making steel ingots was something he did not expect.

"Sven, what are you doing?"

"I am helping the woman of my dreams find a better future for herself – with me in it!" This was a surprisingly poetic statement from Sven's perspective. He looked dreamily at his partner. Dark brown hair and a face that would have been pretty if it was not covered in sweat and soot looked dreamily at him in return.

Erich was nonplussed for a moment. "Sven, what? How long have you known her?" He whispered furiously.

"A month. We met when she tagged alongside us. She has the sweetest smile captain. My heart feels like it is about to burst when I am with her." He sighed affectedly. Suddenly he changed tone and said, "Captain, another batch is coming through you better move."

Erich dutifully moved away from the molten metal and watched the two of them work together to release the molten steel from the simple iron ore.

"Sven, what are you doing? Are you sure you really love her?"

"Yes captain. I want to marry her and raise a family with her.!"

"Are you sure you are not drunk?" Erich pleaded.

"Yes captain. I am drunk with love! You should see the way she drinks captain. It is perfection that cannot be matched by the most sublime of painters." Sven declared affectedly. The woman tittered as his expression.

Erich walked over beside her. "Eh miss, how long have you known my comrade over here?" He asked her in common.

She was flustered for a moment but quickly replied. "Oh, it was over a month ago. The Gilnean Liberation front wanted to help in the war against the Forsaken, but we still had too few people to be of military assistance. So the Alliance asked us to send trained specialists who could help keep your army properly armed once you had crossed Alterac."

"I asked you when you met him." Erich repeated his question.

"It was the third day of the march. I had never been so far away from home before so when I saw the sun go down and realised that my home would not be visible to me the next day, I started to cry. He came up to me and offered me his cloak to dry my tears. I have been talking to him ever since."

"What do you think of him?" Erich pressed on.

The faintest hint of a blush covered her grime coloured cheeks. "My brother was the village blacksmith of Pyrewood. I used to help him in his craft, smelting the ore into bars of iron and steel. When the Forsaken attacked, he was killed, but somehow I survived. I thought to follow you to see if I could lend assistance in whatever way I could, but that night I realised that I was leaving everything I had known behind. It had been too much for. The first I saw of him was giving me his cloak just like my brother used to."

"I see." Erich replied. "My friend over there has similar feelings for you. He would confess his love to you himself, but he is too shy, and his knowledge of common is spotty at best."

The way her eyes shone was all the answer Erich needed. Sven had finally found someone to love. "W-What does he think of me?"She timidly asked.

"He thinks you are strong, alluring and he wants to stand by you." Erich said. He had only lied a little. Sven did say he did want to live with her. The girl turned bright red and mumbled something incoherent.

"Hey captain, are you trying to steal my girl? She is too pure to fall for your city wiles." Sven warned, forgetting he himself was from a large town.

"Ah, I have not introduced my comrade. His name is Sven."

"Oh, what a lovely name. Please tell him my name is Daisy." The woman smiled shyly at Sven.

"Hey, captain. Why is she smiling at me?" Sven asked, confused.

"Because I told her everything you fool. You are as bad at reading gestures as you are at reading letters. Her name is Daisy, and she loves you as much as you love beer." Erich said, fighting to keep his face straight.

It was Sven's turn to blush. Then the two of them looked at each other longingly. It was something so sweet that it might as well be out of a Breton Ballad. Erich left the two lovers to return to his room. He had a new toy to play with.

* * *

Melrick watched the sun slowly sink over the western mountains of Alterac, seemingly sinking in the vast expanse of Lordamere lake. It signified the end of another day. From the bell tower in the town hall, he could spend all day watching the sun sail lazily over his head, protected from it's warm embrace by the cold weather of Alterac. This place, once cleaned up and filled with the right sort of people would make for a fine place to spend in the summer. The provincial backwater of Southshore with it's sunny beaches was also not too far away.

Retirement was the only think Melrick had been thinking of in the past month. Erich Von Peiper was the worst sort of bully he had been forced to work under – a charismatic one. Melrick had been told to do the impossible in such a way that he had ended up making it a possibility. Gone was his peace of mind and the task set to him by SI:7. Now all his days were spent on organising – along with that old fool Littorio – the reconstruction of Strahnbrad.

His cover as a logistical liaison meant that it was his job to actually direct the effort of rebuilding the town in the frigid weather, disburse wages to the workers and other sundry jobs that were the lot of a Lieutenant in the Stormwind Army. In theory it would have been a perfect cover. Due to the negligible amount of stormwind soldiers actually sent to aid Erich, his job would have taken very little time. He would spend the rest of the time observing the fault lines among the mercenaries, take details of their battle tactics and report back to Matthias Shaw.

Erich had strong armed him into rebuilding Strahnbrad. A third of the resources earmarked for the mercenaries' march north had already been spent, and at this rate they would be all but gone by the time the snows melted. While it was not a bad idea to rebuild a place as strategic as this one, the fact remained that it would be built with money from Stormwind – money they could ill afford to lose – for the benefit of traitors. Alterac had sold itself to the Horde once before. It's desolation would have been a warning to others.

Now it was resembling a somewhat prosperous town, like so many in Stormwind. No, Melrick knew that was becoming better than so many others. All the money earmarked for the mercenaries was flowing directly or indirectly into Strahnbrad's coffers. If this pace was kept up for two more months, the town would be secure enough to live in. And the worst thing about it was that in his less lucid moments, Melrick enjoyed the work that he was doing as cover.

Littorio was an old man who would often fall asleep if he felt left out of any conversation. Melrick had expected a hardened mercenary. Instead he had found an old man who loved to plan and build things. It reminded him of several mid ranking members of the Stonemason's guild. Edwin Van Cleef was charismatic in his own way, just like the mercenary Erich Von Peiper had been. Under his command, Stormwind had been rebuilt from scratch after the Second war. The Old man reminded him of the several underlings under the venerable stonemason's command who wanted to build in peace.

He had decided to demolish the more abandoned buildings in the outermost part of Strahnbrad. Neglect and structural deficiencies had turned those houses into death traps and the fact that they were more often than not built into the wall itself only made it worse from a tactical standpoint. If any enemy would hypothetically gain control of the wall, dislodging them from there would be all but impossible. There was no way of reinforcing large sections of the wall because the houses would inhibit the movement of troops.

Not that they needed to anyway. The wall had more holes in it than Alterac cheese. Anyone could easily stroll into the town without a problem. Littorio had agreed with Melrick's assessment of the wall. The two of them now planned to repair the breaches in the wall with wood. Labour and materiel was not a problem. Strahnbrad's population even now was barely half of it's former number. All the peasants and scum the mercenaries had bullied into surrendering were now comfortably housed in the inner parts of the city where they inundated the streets and harassed each other into buying their wares. This was a pitiful state to be in for a nation, but far better than they deserved.

Melrick got up and walked to the door. He looked outside. Apart from a few milling peasants who were watching the sun set and the sky darken, there was nothing outside. Most of their business was done when the trainees under Erich would return to their houses at the end of the day. From what others told him, their training so far had been them running about in circles outside the town while Erich shouted at them. It was certainly a novel way to train someone.

He returned to his seat and let out an exhausted sigh. All he wanted to do was go to the tavern, drink and fall asleep. Being a spy was not the glamorous thing he had assumed it was going to be. Instead of dark leather outfits, high-tec gnomish goggles and large guns, he had to spend his days pretending to be someone else. The persona of Lieutenant Melrick was bleeding into his own personal psyche. The only time he could remember who he was was when he looked at the reports he had been compiling on the mercenaries and their behaviour.

Lieutenant Melrick happily agreed to whatever Captain Erich had to say to him, whether it be defending Pyrewood Village or rebuilding Strahnbrad. SI:7 Agent Melrick wrote reports on the dangerous and subversive behaviour Erich Von Peiper, notorious mercenary engaged in with enemies of Stormwind and traitors to the Alliance. Just reading the reports marked 'Urgent' and 'For Your Eyes Only' made him sick. This charade had gone on for long enough that he was suffering from living two lives all at once. Sooner or later he was bound to snap.

He began to write another letter to Matthias Shaw. For all his faults Erich had the presence of mind not to leave the denizens of Strahnbrad unsupervised. Captain Dawnbreeze had drafted a letter to the Alliance Commander in Stormwind that asked part of the Southshore Garrison to reinforce the town of Strahnbrad. It would keep the people of Alterac Pacified even as the Alliance reclaimed another one of the Human kingdoms from the Horde.

By the time he had finished writing the letter, the sun had already gone down. He was alone in a dark room with only the dim light of lanterns to keep him company. Faint in the distance, he could hear the sound of laughter and music coming from the tavern. Melrick finished sealing his letter and placed it in his pile. Once the snows started to melt, Druid Moonclaw would have his hands full delivering the letters to Southshore.

Melrick had wondered why was it that a being that was older than Humanity itself, and had slept for stretches of time longer than the Eastern Kingdoms of men had existed was so content delivering letters for the Alliance. It was here in Alterac where he had found out the reason. The venerable druid was waiting for his love. Now that the two were united together, they could retire and rest. The Night Elves had given up their immortality to save the world a few years ago. If anyone deserved rest and quiet it was them.

A slight creak of the wood brought him back to the present. For all the repair work Strahnbrad was undergoing, it was still a creaky old and unsound place. Maybe once the Alliance started fortifying it, they could do something about the town hall and houses. It was all but impossible to tell if the creak was from a footstep, a rotting beam or the wind blowing through the rafters. He sighed and got up.

The sound of something heavy dropping from above brought him back to his senses. He picked up his lantern. If the beams had collapsed then the town hall would probably have to be demolished.

Even as he turned around the corner, Melrick's world turned into a sharp spearpoint of agony. His side was on fire. The shock of it caused him to drop the lantern. For a brief moment, the floor was illuminated by the burning oil before it burned itself out.

A face peered out of the darkness. It was rotten, and part of it's flesh had sloughed off. There was no jaw, but a purple and shrivelled tongue that lolled around like the tentacle of a sea monster. It was the face of a dead man, and it glared at Melrick with a hatred so profound that his heart quivered.

Melrick fell over backward to get away and suddenly his head came in contact with something hard. Another face, this time of a monstrous orc loomed over his head. He picked up Melrick with as much effort as a child would pick up a doll. Melrick felt another knife brush against his neck. Compared to the pain spreading throughout his body, this felt as gentle as a lover's kiss. If he was going to die here, let his last moments be of fond and warm memories of his life.

"The Alliance commander, where is he." A gentle female voice asked him. Melrick was not sure if it was just a voice in his head or if someone was asking the question. All he knew was that a voice this sweet deserved an answer.

"The tavern." He murmured.

"Where does he live?" the voice asked again.

"In the tavern." he replied, feeling drowsy. All Melrick wanted to do was slip away and fall asleep.

"What does he look like."

"Tall, dark haired, grey eyed." He managed to say. He realised that he was beginning to drool. That was strange. Drool was never red.

Suddenly something clicked inside his head. With an effort that strained every last bit of his consciousness, he managed to turn his head upward. There were four figures looking down at him. One was the dead man with no jaw, the other was a similarly dessicated man with only one infernal orb for an eye. The third was the orc that he had bumped into. He towered over every other figure in the room.

Melrick's eyes widened as he recognized the final figure. He tried to hail the elf, but when he opened his mouth a spout of blood dribbled out. Even breathing was being troublesome.

The orc growled something.

The elf shook her head and made a sign. Melrick's eyes fought hard to stay open. His breathing was beyond irregular. His heart threatened to burst in his chest. This was it. This was the end.

Agent Melrick never felt the two Forsaken rogues tear his arms out of their sockets and feast on them. He was already far away, returning home.

* * *

 _ **Guest, yeah lot more where that came from**_

 _ **Guest, I am going to burn out any time soon. Enjoy the ride**_

 _ **CaptnDetergent, Yeah, I always found it to be weird that sigmarite war priests were 100% Fanatical 100% of the time in most GW work. In a multi religious place like the empire that will always cause some problems or the other.**_

 _ **Machicha, most of the grimdark is just window dressing or fluff.**_

 _ **Guest, keep reading ;)**_

 _ **SolarBlaster, yeah. Especially as they are largely tileans. Even Erich has a bit of Tilea floating around in him by now since he has been fighting there for a long amount of time.**_

 _ **Aburg76, glad you liked it. The forsaken should be unnerving even to their allies but blizzard pushes the 'Horde is family' stuff way too much. Part of their family is the forsaken who are a race of reanimated humans who have no moral or ethical boundaries. Of course what blizzard does with the Alliance is an order of magnitude more cancerous and worse. Everyone has to look stupid so that Anduin the Mary Sue and his dumbass dad become the center of the Alliance story. Really wish he drowned in Mists of Pandaria.**_


	27. Chapter 27

**Shaving and Stabbing**

* * *

There was often a sense of camaraderie in drinking holes and taverns throughout the old world. From the largest and grandest establishments catering to Burgomeisters and Nobles in the Marketplatz of Altdorf to the dingiest shacks in the walls of the city, places for drink were the true gathering places for humanity's best and worst. Here people could relax and let their worries pass them by in different states of drunken stupor and conversation was relaxed and meandering – like the river Reik that flowed by the city and into the sea.

A week ago, when the trainees and recruits had entered the Strahnbrad tavern, seeing Erich and his men having drinks there had unnerved them. After all, just a few hours ago, they were being chased up and down these very men. Luigi, being the clever young man that he was had pointed them to empty seats and had bidden them to stay for as long as they would like. They would still have to wake up on the next day for their training but as they were not on the training grounds, there was no reason for them to feel threatened.

It was a simple thing that had done wonders for their morale. Luigi was intelligent enough to know how not to push them too far. While Erich had initially wanted to make them run until they could barely stand, Luigi had taken a far more interesting approach. He would make the men under his charge run at the pace of the slowest person for a fixed set of laps before dismissing them. Eager to get out of training early, all of the peasants would try and pick up their pace. This way he had made them keep a marching pace without any extra cajoling or threats that Erich had been forced to employ.

Even now, Luigi was in the midst of his trainees and laughing with them. They knew that come morning they would be starting their real training. Now the plan was to make them march in formation and make sure they could point their pikes towards the enemy at first. A week of that and then Erich and Luigi would move on to actual tactics. While the peasants of Alterac were not half bad with a sword, the strength of a pike line lay in it's capacity to weather charges and stab their foes to death with a forest of sharp spear heads well out of their reach.

But all those considerations were in the far future. Right now, Erich was enjoying the murmur of conversation and the warmth of the beer flowing through his veins. On most days he would drink thrice the amount to feel something similar, but the fact that he was spending most of his day running and climbing already made him lethargic. Add to that a pair of pints of warm beer and Erich could already feel a pleasant stiffness in his limbs. This was something to be cherished. It would seem that Strahnbrad was starting to grow on him.

Rodrigo's slurred voice spoke up. "Eh, Capitan. What's the plan for tomorrow?" He asked.

"Oh, nothing much. Now that the poor bastards have been run down, I think we can start making them hit each other with sticks." Erich responded.

"Eh? Why would you want them to fight with sticks?" Rodrigo made a wry face as he said that. His face was slowly turning red.

"I was not going to make them beat each other with sticks you dunce." Erich laughed. "Would you trust a bunch of green recruits with pikes?" He asked Rodrigo in return.

"Yes. I would trust them to stab themselves on the business end before long. Remember those poor bretonnian buggers?" Rodrigo turned misty eyed. "Did a great job flailing around and then ran away when we started scratching them." He laughed. Bretonnians were not known for the stout hearts of their infantry.

"These ones might put up a bit of a fight when we are done with them you know." Erich replied. They had a certain amount of grit to them. From what he had picked up from their conversations, the few remaining survivors of this nation were either in Strahnbrad now, or were scattered all over the lands to the south. In a way, they reminded Erich of Sollanders during their long exile.

"I will belive it when I see it Capitan." Rodrigo shrugged. "Hey Hans, what do you think of the new meat?" at a figure seated at the distant table.

Hans was seated on a table with Luigi and Caledra. His ornate Halberd, something he had picked up from a Knight's corpse, was at his side like always. Erich had seen him wield that vicious weapon with the grace of a Cathayan Martial Artist on very rare occasions. Much like Erich, the man only used the showiest of moves while warming up or sparring. Real combat was too serious to be showing off skills in. Why dance around when a simple stab would get the job done.

"I think I would rather have them being killed instead of my boys, Rodrigo." Hans replied without turning back. He then turned his head and said, "I also think Rodrigo, that you have had more than enough to drink."

"What nonsense. It's just a single pint. Hey Capitan, take a look." He slid the thing over. Erich gripped it firmly in his hand. It had been true that Rodrigo had not ordered a single drink apart from this one. Erich sniffed and then smiled.

The man had of course been drinking rum from the beer mug.

"So, you are off duty tomorrow Rodrigo?" Erich asked him as he slid the mug back over the table.

Rodrigo caught it with both hands and gripped it firmly. He took another big sip before smacking his lips. "Yes, the nice purple lady is going to be patrolling for the week. What was her name? Swiftspear or something?"

"Lady Su'ura Swiftarrow." Erich corrected him.

"Ah yes, bless her heart. She says that she is getting too bored cooped up inside the town, and Hans has been doing a good job keeping order with his Middenland boys. So she wants to start patrolling to the south. My boys are just celebrating the beginning of their week off over there." Rodrigo raised a shaky finger in the general direction of the tavern. There was no one there. His men had all gone to bed early.

"So, are you planning on starting tomorrow with a hangover?" Erich joked.

Rodrigo shrugged. "Well, I have to do what I have to do. We are all craving action captain."

"Well let me summon an army of the dead or a bunch of ogres to fight for your delight Rodrigo." Erich snorted. "Once we start marching, all we are going to be hoping that we stayed here."

Rodrigo managed to look at him straight in the eye this time. "You aren't going soft on these people here are you?" When Erich hesitated for a moment, Rodrigo swore. "You are doing it again Capitan. Getting involved in places where you shouldn't stick you damn nose in." The vehemence with which he said the last sentence caused several heads to turn in his direction.

Erich just shrugged. "All I am saying is that I would rather sit in an inn and drink instead of standing in the front line you belligerent bastard." He rolled his eyes as he said that.

All the fight went out of Rodrigo's eyes. "Why didn't you just tell me that then? Now I feel like you made me look stupid."

"Because you had too much to drink you fool. You look about as red as an Estalian's arse." Erich politely replied.

"Oh. Should I stop now then?"

"Just finish your rum, and lets just get some sleep. Unlike you, I have work tomorrow," he sighed. Rodrigo was right. There was very little to do here. If training the peasants was not available to him, Erich had little idea about what he was going to do. Ennui was often the deadliest foe a soldier faced. Keeping skills sharp was always a chore and drinking yourself silly was always easy and fun.

Finishing the rum took nearly an hour, and by the time Erich was leaving with Rodrigo, all the buzz from his own beer had worn off. Rodrigo on the other hand was still drunk and singing along a popular drinking song, mangling the words to an unrecognisable degree. Parts of the room cheered him on. Both Tilean and Alterac shouting with joy, even though they could not understand each other's tongue. Drunkeness made them understand each other on a fundamental level.

No, that was wrong. Humans here spoke a language called Common. Slowly but steadily his men had begun to pick up on the language. Caledra had stolen his enchanted quill and had taught Luigi how to read and speak the language. His men in general had to learn by more mundane methods, and were picking up words for things. The smarter ones could talk in rudimentary sentences now, and the not-so-smart ones like Sven seemed to get along by with grunting and pointing. The entire linguistic exercise was certainly interesting from an observer's point of view. Tileans who would trade with Cathay or Ind had mentioned it was not too difficult to pick up the language. It was always easiest to pick up the swear words. Humans, no matter where they were seemed to think alike.

But those academic matters were for another time. What Erich was now focused on was getting Rodrigo to his room safely. The man's breathing was shallow and he muttered to himself. Erich wondered if he had drunk too much and would vomit. Nothing was quite like starting a week of rest by vomiting in your own bed. It would be unfortunate if the man choked on his own vomit. Erich had heard that was always a possibility.

As it turned out, Rodrigo was fine. He managed to crawl to the bed and attempted clumsily to hug Erich. He returned the awkward hug and bade him goodnight. Rodrigo's snore accompanied him out of the room. Just in case, he left the door unlocked.

He sighed as he entered his room. The day was finally over. Now, all Erich had to do before he went to bed was shave.

* * *

Talaena watched the sun begin to set from the ruined buildings they were hiding in. The bright blue of the sky slowly began to be replaced by an orange glow. Alterac for all it's faults was quite picturesque. She had been here before. The war between the Frostwolf and the Stormpikes had attracted the attention of several adventurers over the years and while she was still earning her place in the Horde, she had lent her daggers to the struggle.

It was oddly comforting, watching the sun slowly set over the mountains and the sky beginning to darken. She and Krog were the only two people in the room. Their appearances were far too conspicuous to actively scout inside the town. On the other hand the goblin was too small and the two forsaken could pass off as humans from a distance. They were making sure the coast was clear before they would make their dash into the town hall.

Even from here she could see the belfry high above the buildings in the town. The clock was broken of course. Grimble's tiny figure, cloaked and hooded could only be seen because Krog had been keeping an eye on the goblin. Talaena was worried. Ever since the two of them had decided to report on this matter to Garrosh Hellscream, they had been sticking together. The Forsaken and goblin would be suspicious of them when they were returning with the Banshee Queen's desired head. They needed a better plan, and a way to travel that would not be monitored by the Forsaken.

"Krog, have you figured out how we will get to Orgrimmar without the Deathstalkers following us?" She asked, careful to keep her voice down.

The orc stopped staring at his boots and looked at her. "It is best if we split up. I will take the Zeppelin to Orgrimmar. You should go to Silvermoon and make your own way to the Warchief." He seemed surprisingly small nestled into a small curled up ball, clutching his knife and an axe.

"What happens if we miss each other Krog? I am not doing this alone." The forsaken were resourceful enough to track her in Silvermoon, then they would be able to follow her to Orgrimmar without a hitch.

"Then don't come, elf. I don't need your help." The orc shrugged.

"Two witnesses are better than one, Orc. Besides, you have convinced me. Someone has to do something about what we saw. Don't you get it? The undead do not operate like the living do. They can simply raise the dead at a snap of their finger. I know. I saw my father die and rise again with my own eyes." Talaena gripped the hilt of her daggers as she said this.

"Are you sure about this elf? Torturing and experimenting on humans is one thing. Raising the dead to serve you makes her no different from the Lich King. These are an order of magnitude more than what we saw. What proof do you have?"

"You were at Angrathar were you not? I was part of the effort to retake the Undercity. The Alliance did a number on the forsaken in the city and the surrounding lands. So did Varimathras' forces. The forsaken should be clinging on to their kingdom, not launching massive attacks into Gilneas and the alliance territories."

"This is war, elf. If we do not strike first, we will be struck first. And none of that proves that the Forsaken have been doing what you say they are." Krog grumbled.

"Listen to me orc. Tirisfal glade falls into decay each passing month. The Western plaguelands were being healed by the Cenarion circle when the Cataclysm started but now it is as decayed as it ever had been under the lich king. Something stinks at the bottom of this, and I doubt it is just the decay of our friends." Her voice was barely above a whisper.

The orc quiet for a minute and fidgeted with his belt. After a moment, he retrieved something from a satchel that hung about it. Even in the gloom of the rapidly receding sunlight, it shone as though it was bright as day. Talaena was intrigued. Like all blood elves, she could sense magic. And it shined through the item. Krog tossed it her direction. She caught it and held it up.

It was written on parchment that might have been as old as Nordrassil or as young as freshly cured hide. The words in it seemed far more _real_ than her own hands holding it. The faint scent of magic similar to that used by titanic constructs was on it, but different, much more vital somehow. It read:

 _Krog,_

 _I hope your family is doing well. I am writing this letter to you because of invaluable help you gave many years ago in the plaguelands._

 _The Wyrmrest Temple will soon be under attack from the minions of Deathwing. We need the help of every skilled adventurer who will take up arms to defend Azeroth in it's darkest hour – no matter their allegiance._

 _Chromie_

 _PS: Bring any help that you can._

Krog spoke, "I got this message in Undercity. I am going to wyrmrest temple. I want you to come with me. Once this is over, we can plead our case to the Warchief." His tone brooked no argument.

They watched the sun begin to finally disappear over the mountains of Alterac. Almost invisible in the gloom, the shape of two shadows crawling up the Town Hall's bell tower was the sign they had been waiting for.

With a dash and a leap, Talaena was across the street and on top of another abandoned house. She sprinted on the rooftops, disturbing the snow. With any luck, it would disappear by the time they had finished with the town hall. By the time she had crossed the length of the street, she was running at full speed, her legs pumping and her heart rate increasing. Running across rooftops was an excellent warm up for the rest of the mission.

At Talaena approached the ledge at the end of the roof, she put as much force as she could on the balls of her feet and jumped. It was at least ten yards high up in the air and for an adrenaline fuelled moment that lasted for what seemed like an eternity, she was in mid air.

At the apogee of her jump, she deployed the gnomish gliding device and she soared, like a dragonhawk across the now empty thoroughfare and landed squarely on the roof of the town square. In three quick leaps she was now climbing the belfry with a haste that would have seemed remarkable to the humans if they noticed her.

After a few moments, she came face to face with Grimble. His ugly snout poked out of his nose and he leered at her, greedily devouring her slightly flushed face and heaving breasts. He leaned in and inhaled her scent deeply. Then he said "I will pay you to do that naked – double if you land on me."

She just kept climbing.

After a few moments she came face to face with the forsaken. The one with no lower jaw pointed downward and held up a finger. Talaena nodded and kept moving. She stood on the top of the belfry and moved her knife quickly and deftly. The rope to ring the bell was cut in an instant. She hefted it up and tied the thing to one of the pillars. That would ensure that the Alliance mercenaries would be in no position to raise the alarm.

By the time she was finished the rest of them had crawled up to the base of the belfry. The Goblin winked at her. She looked away. "Where is Krog?" The forsaken Deathstalker who could speak asked her.

"Picking the lock. We move in from the top, he moves in from the back." Talaena replied. The two Forsaken Rogues nodded. She then brought out her Gnomish Gnite Vision Goggles from her belt and activated it. The light was all but gone. This would let her see in the dark of the town hall.

She listened, perking her ears to their uttermost extent. The sounds of the tavern came into her ear like a rushing wave, She focused on filtering out the useless noise and felt calm as it receded into the background. The only sounds she heard was the ambience of her immediate surroundings. Then she heard a gentle scrape of a lock being slowly turned and rotated. After a few moments, the click, as audible as the cocking of a gun made itself known. Talaena pointed down and in the next moment all four of the rogues jumped down the shaft of the bell tower.

As they landed they immediately spread themselves out. From what she could tell, Talaena was in one of the store rooms. It was packed with boxes marked with alliance insignia. Once the hall was secure, maybe she could take a look. Right now, illuminated in the sharp green of the goggles, she could see clearly as it was bright daylight.

The Forsaken rogues were already moving, as quiet as shadows. They would be all but invisible to any human as they stalked through the corridors of the place. That only left the goblin and Krog unaccounted for.

She found Grimble, sniffing her again. She turned to look at him, her face contorted with fury. He simply stuck his tongue out at her and licked the bit of exposed skin on the back of her neck. It was an intimate gesture that caused her to sigh for a moment. The goblin whispered in her ear, "There's more where that came from." For his efforts, Talaena rewarded him with an elbow to his gut. Grimble bent over and fell down like the sack of excrement that he was.

Then she heard footsteps. Every sense was keyed in on the voice now. It was not even attempting to be stealthy, and was too light to be Krog. It would mean that one of the humans who worked here coming here. She wondered if others would be here as well.

After a moment, a figure carrying the lantern entered the opened the door. Her Gnite Vision Goggles amplified the light to such an extent that for a moment, she was blinded. She heard the swish of a knife being withdrawn and the thud as a body fell down. Then the lantern sputtered and died, and after a moment, the vision returned to it's tint of greens. Talaena blinked once or twice to clear out the dancing spots in front of her eyes. She walked up to the still moving human, taking in his features

The human was trying to crawl away from the two forsaken rogues that had surrounded him. He was no long for this world, that much was sure. His eyes were beginning to glaze over, and he drooled a little bit of blood. The Deathstalker's poison was working. The mind numbing nature of that poison meant that the human was extremely suggestible while he was still alive. From the way he had been stabbed, it was clear that they did not have much time.

Out of the gloom, Krog appeared. The human did not even try to resist, he just whimpered quietly, like a wounded dog. He was hoisted up like a glass of wine being raised. Almost gently, Krog raised a knife to his throat jerked his head a little.

Talaena spoke, "The Alliance commander, Where is he?"

The human, stupefied by the mind numbing poison replied, "The tavern."

"Where does he live?" She asked.

"In the Tavern." He repeated.

"What does he look like." This would be the final question. The human was finished.

"Tall, dark haired, grey eyed." He slurred. The human's chest gave a final effort to move more air, and then it stopped. Krog dropped the freshly made corpse down on the floor.

"The rest of the town hall is empty." He rumbled.

Talaena was about to reply when she was interrupted by the sounds of a body being dismembered. The forsaken were busy feasting on the human's remains. She just looked away. Cannibalising corpses reminded her of her father eating her mother's remains after he had been reanimated. It was too horrific to even comprehend. To see it happening now made her want to throw up.

Krog caught her and gently moved her away from the corridor. He looked at her straight in her eyes and said, "That was good work, elf. We now know what our target looks like and where he is." They way his eyes moved and his hands shook told her that he was taking the grisly feast about as bad as she was.

"Yes, we won't have much time. We have to move immediately. With any luck, the human will be in his tavern room and we can make a quick and clean exit." She shuddered as the sound of a bone being snapped echoed throughout the building.

"I see. Do you know anything about human taverns? Because I don't." The orc was breathing deep trying to calm himself.

"Yes. The best rooms will be up on the second floor. We can break in through the windows, check the rooms and then secure the kill. With any luck, the merrymakers won't even hear their commander dying upstairs." Any thing else she would have said as she heard the sickening sound of the two undead drinking the marrow from their bones.

Her horrified expression must have shown up in her face. Krog's grip on her tightened and he said, "We will deal with them later. Now, focus. How do we exit."

"We gather the head, run out of the window and make a dash for the nearest hole in the wall. I deploy a smoke bomb if things get too hairy and we make a break for the lower foothills and return to Tirisfal." She nodded. Yes, all Talaena would have to do was follow the plan. She had it all figured out.

"Good. Lets get this done, elf." Krog said encouragingly. His massive face twisted in a grin.

"Tell me Krog, why do you call me 'Elf'? I have a name." Talaena smiled at him in return.

The orc scratched his head and said, "I found elven names hard to pronounce. So I call you Elf. Unless you want me to mangle your name that is." The honesty in his voice was telling.

Thankfully, by this time the two forsaken had finished their ghastly meal and had walked in closer. Talaena could see the dark smudges on their clothes and their faces. She did not want to see the corpse and what remained of it. After a moment, the goblin appeared from the other entrance. Krog pointed to the door and said, "Let's go. The sooner we are done here, the sooner we can leave."

They filed out of the coldness of the empty and dark town hall into the frigid conditions of Alterac in it's natural state. There was a sharpness in the mountain air, a sense of invigoration that made Talaena feel giddy. The tavern itself seemed to roar with life in contrast with the sombre darkness and death that was the town hall.

Figures moved by the windows, dark shadows thrown up against the golden lights that lit up it's interior. No one even cared to look outside as the five rogues sneaked past the windows and the back door. They were at home in the shadows that covered Strahnbrad past the light streaming out of the windows. This was going to be done in an hour. By this time tomorrow, they would be returning to Sylvanas with the head she wanted.

As if luck was on their side, the window to on the upper floors was open for some reason. They stood outside in the crevices of the tavern, melding into the gloom,, while Talaena brought out a special bolt from a small silken bag in her belt. It was a single and elegantly carved piece of Titanium, light as a feather and as strong as a Tauren warrior. Attached to it was a piece of rope that long enough to climb through mountain gorges and span ravines

She aimed at a spot in the brickwork with her small crossbow and fired. The titanium bolt went through it like a knife through flesh and lodged in firmly. She tugged the rope to make sure that the bolt was not going to fall off. She made a sign and the rest of the rogues came out of their hiding spots. Slowly and steadily, they clambered up on the rope and crawled to the top. Grimble went first, slowly disappearing into the golden light of the inn. The two Forsaken Deathstalkers went in next.

Krog was the last. He tugged the rope to make sure it would not fall. He grunted and heaved himself up. His green and muscular body gripped the rope tightly as he hauled himself up. It reminded her of a caterpillar slowly crawling up a plant. She had to stifle a laugh. After a few minutes even he went inside the building. Now it was her turn.

Unlike the others, she did not grip the rope with both her hands and her feet. With the grace of an accomplished acrobat, she stood on the width of her rope and silently as the night, she ran up it's length. Momentum was key. As long as her feet fell in the correct place she would run up the rope and into the building in a matter of moments. It was as she had done countless times before. Within the span of a minute she was out of the biting cold of Alterac and inside the warmth of a well lit building.

There was no space for stealth here. The narrow passageway was well lit and all the doors seemed to be locked. The sounds from downstairs was loud enough to cover their footsteps. A quick sweep of the upper floor was the best chance they had of finding their target and eliminating him.

Luckily for them, a room was left open. They all walked inside, taking care to close the door behind them. It would do no good for someone to see what they were up to. The stink of alcohol permeated the room. It was neat, and ordered and the table was filled with papers that marked troop movements written in Common. This room belonged to a commander. And lying on the bed was the man they were looking for.

He was sleeping. His face, flushed with drinks was ruddy, but the dark shaggy hair and the papers lying on the desk were proof enough that this was their target. Grimble leaped on the human and stabbed it in the heart. The death was instantaneous. The human's eyes did not even open as he died. Slowly the white bedsheet became crimson as his blood flowed out. Krog was next. With a deft movement of his axe, the human's head was lopped off clean from the neck. A gout of blood spurted outwards, covering the face and the hair of the commander. His face was a blood covered mess. They had what they needed.

Krog began to run out towards the window, with the head still clutched in his massive hands, holding it by the hair. It looked like a macabre trophy. The Deathstalker who could speak followed him. They had what they needed, and they were making a break for it. Talaena made to follow.

Grimble said. "Say, why don't we kill some more of these fools upstairs and have fun with the corpses? ." The other Deathstalker nodded. Within a few minutes, what remained of the Mercenary commander was a pile of mutilated flesh that could not be recognised anymore. This was beyond sadistic. The revellers below would find a stark message about the might of the Horde tomorrow morning.

In a flash, the goblin was outside, running through the corridor with his kit in hand. Talaena turned to look at the papers on the table. She had enough knowledge of common to know what they meant. It seemed that this was a schedule of patrols in the town and scouting expeditions outside. Nothing out of the ordinary. Of course they would have to be scrapped. The mercenaries would be in disarray and easy prey for the Forsaken. In a way, the human was lucky. His would be the most painless death they could get.

Meanwhile the Goblin's craft was heard loud and clear amidst all the din from downstairs. He was quickly opening the doors and letting the Deathstalker clear them out while he moved to the next one. In a few minutes nearly all the doors were checked. They were mostly abandoned. This was going as perfectly as could possibly be. Talaena smiled, they made a good team.

* * *

The knife gently brushed Erich's cheek, and he was rewarded with strands of his beard fall into the empty basin below. Above the drunken revelry downstairs, this was a world of calm and collected quiet. All the beer's haze had been burned out. He was as sharp as he could ever be, but the toils of the day had taken a toll on him. After he was done shaving, the next thing he was going to do was crawl under the comfort of his blankets and fall asleep.

Tomorrow was a big day, and he was going to do his best to look as sharp as he could. The peasants had been taught to march and run together. Now they would be taught to fight together. It was going to be an interesting challenge, Erich mused as he cleaned another segment of his beard with slow and practised ease. Saving money was as good as earning it, and barbers were known for bleeding their customers, whether it be for a simple hair cut or actual bleeding to balance out the sick humours of their clients. He slowly hummed to himself as he steadily harvested the hair from his cheeks, chin and neck. This was was sublime. This was beautiful. He was beautiful at this moment with his freshly shaved face, his short and cropped hair and his childish smile admiring his own reflection.

His admiration of his rugged good looks was interrupted by the sound of pair of footsteps, one heavy and one light, running in the corridor. It would seem someone had a tryst in their room they were desperate to keep. Erich smiled. The simple joys of life were the most precious. A warmth of another person's body against your own after both your lusts were sated. The comfort of a warm fireplace during a wintry evening. The reflection of your own face in the mirror looking groomed and proper.

He lay down on the bed and checked his pistol. The flint lock mechanism was perhaps the pinnacle of human achievement in firearms. It was reliable, ornate and simple in it's design. The metal of the barrel was polished to a burnished hue that made it gleam in any light. The wood was of polished oak hewn from a tree in the abandoned Peiperschloss, his ancestral home. It's dark wood, glimmered dully in the light of the moon, in contrast to his pale skin. It was a thing of exquisite beauty, and the skill and the craft that had gone into it made it passable enough according to dwarfs. "Good enough for umgi work." They said. It was perhaps the highest praise one could get from a member of the master crafters who were among the staunchest allies of humanity.

His reflectiveness of his pistol was disturbed again by someone attempting to open their door. It was annoying. Drunken bastards should not leave their doors locked. Eventually, the sound of a door opening made him snort. The fool had at last managed to open his door. Suddenly, the sound of another lock being opened came to his ears. It would seem that the revelry was over and the merrymakers were beginning to return to their rooms. Eventually, that door was also opened and another pair of footsteps went inside.

Erich's ears keyed in on another door being unlocked. This was certainly odd. This was the third sequential door being opened. Erich inhaled sharply as the lock clicked and clacked at a slightly faster pace, and another pair of footsteps went in. There was no chatter coming in from the hallway itself, all the sounds of life were from downstairs. This was worrisome.

His hand trembled as he slowly got out of his bed, careful not to make a single sound. In the meantime, he heard another door being opened and another – _no, the same -_ pair of footsteps enter while another door was being unlocked. There were eight doors on the upper level, and with Rodrigo's door open, it meant that only two more were left. His and the door opposite to him. Someone was searching the rooms methodically, looking for something or someone.

His hands worked furiously, loading the pistol. The ball and a bit of shot went in first, and he rammed it home as quietly as he could. Fetching a percussion cap from his bag of shot, he cocked his weapon as quietly as he could, eyes frantically dashing between the sword on his table and the locked door. His instincts were kicking in again. His fingers and hand trembled as he rammed the shot home. The percussive cap was almost dropped as he attached it to the hammer of the pistol He breathed hard and fast to calm himself and prepare for the worst.

The felt the lock turning on his door and he inhaled sharply. The world slowed down once more, just according to his tempo. Erich Von Peiper was in command of his body, and not the other way around. Slowly, the door opened, and a figure, not taller than a gnome poked it's head inside.

Where the gnome had been like an overgrown child, the creature that poked it's head inside now was anything but. It's skin was a mottled green, and it held a pair of wicked daggers in it's hands. The nose protruded outwards in the shape of a hook, and rows of uneven teeth glittered sharply in it's mouth. It was a night goblin,just like in the stories coming to kill him in the depths of the night. The creature turned to look at him for a moment, but Erich was ready. His pistol had already been pointed at the door when it had begun to open.

He pressed the trigger and the stillness of the night and the pleasant din from downstairs was shattered by the roar of Nuln Blackpowder.

* * *

Talaena heard the gunshot from the commander's room. She had been busy pilfering any information that would be useful. Taking care to leave the bloody bed a wide berth she had largely found nothing more than patrol routes and large quantities of drink. The human had doubtless been insensate when he had been assassinated. Her reverie was broken from the sound of a loud bang that overwhelmed the din from downstairs. She ran up and looked outside in the hallway. Grimble's body was lying by the window, his odious head gone. A thick layer of dark red blood splattered on the open windows and the brick walls and the two daggers were clutched in his hands even now.

After a moment, the deathstalker ran out of his latest room to check on the commotion. Meanwhile the sound downstairs had been cries first and were now shout of alarm. This was bad. They had lingered too long here and needed to leave. She shouted, "We have to leave, now." The Goblin could not be helped.

The Deathstalker nodded at her and ran out into the corridor. He began to sprint towards the window when a figure blocked his path. The figure was a human, naked from the waist up. His body had several faint bruises that seemed to be receding. In his right hand was a well made sword that had the faint aura of magic about it, and in his left was a dagger. A pistol hung from his belt, still smoking.

"Halt, who are you?" He asked them with a commanding tone.

In response the Forsaken Deathstalker screamed at him and began to charge. He would either knock the human down or stab him before escaping. Talaena made to follow.

Instead of the human ducking out of the way or standing his ground, he began to run at the deathstalker at a slow and deliberate pace. In response, the Forsaken rogue tried to stab him while he ran. The first blow was a clear feint designed to bait the human into defending with his rapier. For a moment it seemed that the human took the bait. The magical blade clashed against the envenomed one and was parried. Meanwhile the second knife went straight for his heart.

At the last moment, the human side stepped that blow, the knife going through the empty space between his heart and his arm. Without missing a beat the human grabbed the Deathstalker's right arm in a crushing grip. The two of them were pinned down with neither of their weapons able to hurt the other.

The Deathstalker attempted to say something. The human responded by bashing him with his head. Although dead, the reflexes of the Forsaken meant that he dropped the knife from his pinned hand. In another moment, the human stabbed him through the throat with his dagger even as his rapier kept the other knife away from him.

Talaena stared numbly for a moment as the knife came up through the skull of the long dead man. The human looked at him with faint disgust, and let the dagger remain embedded in the head. He slowly extricated himself from the rotting body and looked quietly at her for a moment.

"What is going on here?" He asked her. Was this human so stupid? Did he comprehend members of the horde when he saw them?

"Get out of the way human, our work here is done. I wish to do you no further harm." Behind her she could hear the rapid sounds of at least a score of people ascending the stairs. She had to make a break for it now.

The human stared at her for a moment before finally saying, "No."

Talaena smiled. Of course he would try to bar her path. "Don't say I did not warn you human." She said.

In response, the human simply raised his rapier in a salute before readying himself to fight. Just as expected, humans were so predictable.

She began to run at him at a fast pace. The human readied himself for a similar attack that the Deathstalker had attempted on him and edged sideways at the last moment, just as she had planned. Pleased with herself, Talaena flashed the human a grin as her lithe body flew in the air. The window was just over a yard away, and like everything else, her momentum would carry her through it. This was exactly as she had planned it to be.

Even as her hands almost reached the window, she felt a massive force on her calves. The window leapt away from her and she was hurtled backward. Bracing herself for the fall, she rolled into a ball as she fell backwards and landed on her feet. She was back where she had started. The human just rotated his wrist and smiled.

"I had expected you to be a lot lighter, miss." He winked at her.

Talaena froze. This human had dared to call her fat? He would pay. She rushed at him this time, with an intent to kill, maim or at least wound. The human's smile rapidly faded as he parried and dodged a bevy of blows from her twin knives. She kept pushing him back in earnest, towards the window. The human was bound to slip up, and the fury of her onslaught meant that Talaena would not be attacked in turn. The human was fighting with a single weapon against two.

After a few seconds he was pinned to the wall. There were cries of alarm in a strange language from the back of the corridor. It would seem the deceased commander's lackeys had finally come to his belated rescue. She had to make this quick.

Using her momentum, Talaena aimed a kick at the humans' head. He had not expected her to use her body as a weapon, and the kick stunned him. He slumped against the wall and clutched his head with his free hand, while the rapier hung limply at his side. It would be trivial to finish him off now.

Talaena put a leg out on the windowsill and prepared to jump out and into the snow. She could see the orc's silhouette out beyond the walls of Strahnbrad, looking intently at her. She was almost free. All she had to do was run down the rope and into the darkness. The humans would be too confused to chase them.

Even as she prepared to jump, a voice from the dim echoes of her memory sounded. It was a warning delivered in Thalassian, and it came from the corridor. "Halt child, or you will will be shot by arrows." Normally she would trust to her luck and jump down. But there was something familiar about that voice. She turned to look and her knees buckled.

Between the crowd of humans stood an Elf. She knew that scowl, she had seen it several times in the last century when she had been growing up. Her Father would always look at her like that when he had caught her sneaking his knives to play with. Now the scowl was on a female face, and a body hidden in mail and leather.

"Auntie Caledra?" Talaena said in disbelief.

The Elven figure opened her mouth to reply but Talaena never heard it. In the span of a moment where she had been distracted, a hand grasping the pommel of a blade smashed into her face. Talaena's balance, always so delicate was lost in an instant. Her world exploded in pain. She felt blood streaming out of her mouth as she began to fall out of the window. This was it. She was going to die a moment after she had found someone in her family. The cruelty of fate was as maddening as it was hilarious.

A strong hand gripped the back of her hand and she looked up. The human's face looked dispassionately at her, and his eyes, as grey as the steel in his hands stared into her own fel green ones. She giggled. They had killed the wrong person. Her vision began to fade and she wondered if she was going to die here.

Another figure appeared at the human's side. It was her Aunt. She was alive and well. The swirl of emotions going through her head threatened to overwhelm Talaena. She was beginning to black out. The human had hit her hard enough.

She saw her aunt gently lay a hand on the human's shoulder. She heard him say in common, "Are you alright Erich?"

The human smiled grimly at Talaena as he said, "You elves sure know how to make an impression on a man.", pointing to the side of his head. His aunt touched the purpling bruise gently.

Then her world faded away into darkness.

* * *

 _ **Machcia, well Talaena really isn't much of a "For the Horde Rawr :3" type of blood elf. She is more interested in finding her family. And it helps that Erich is not exactly an Alliance soldier but rather a mercenary, same as her.**_

 _ **Guest, yeah I really love the Total warhammer trailer for the empire. In the space of a minute Karl Franz explains what the Empire means to the warhammer Fantasy universe. It is less grimdark and more nobledark. Shit is bad, but it can get better or worse.**_

 _ **Ronmr, you will find out soonish.**_

 _ **medchtsia, yeah that would be interesting. Would Sven be freaked out? Would he consider himself blessed?**_

 _ **Aburg, hope this was interesting for you.**_

 _ **Captndetergent, I hope I evened the odds here.**_

 _ **AKJ 19, I always found it odd that the humans in WoW especially now are completely morally good obedient soldiers of King Chin and King mary sue who can do no wrong and don't hate anyone.**_

 _ **Prince Sheogorath, one of the coolest things about the empire's religion is that Sigmar is the god of the empire as well as their founder, not as humans as a whole. It seems to be a shame in contrast that religious differences are always swept under the rug in WoW with the entire Light and void are morally grey concepts. It cheapens the value of any religious influences in their society. Factions like the night elves are hit the hardest.**_


	28. Chapter 28

**Leverage**

* * *

Caledra stared at the young elf who sat down on the chair staring at her. The windows inside the town hall had been opened to get the stench of blood and death out of the building, and the wind mercifully cleared away the stench that had begun to permeate the Town Hall. The sounds outside were a mixture of footsteps in the snow Her heart burst with a variety of emotions each more confusing than the last.

Here was her brother's little girl, safe and sound, and a hundred years old. The last Caledra had seen Talaena, she was clinging to her mother's skirt as Talarian and his family had come to see her become a ranger. An elf, becoming a ranger so late in life was something of an oddity in Elven society. She had been mocked, disowned and met with hostility on her quest. Only Talarian and his family had offered her some sort of refuge from the stream of hate directed at her.

Now he was dead and gone, as Caledra had feared in her heart all along. The loss of Elven life had been immense in the Scourge's assault on Quel'Thalas. Afterward, she had never had the opportunity to return to Quel'Thalas. It would be a place of sorrows and horrors for her now, inhabited by a people who had spurned Alliance help to join forces with the Horde. Even when the bootlicker Lor'themar Theron had graciously 'allowed' high elves to visit the Sunwell, most of the Quel'Dorei had stayed away. Their kin were now the foe, who fought against the Alliance and consorted with Orcs and the Forsaken.

And one of these traitors now sat in a chair in front of her, looking intently into her eyes. Talaena's eyes were rimmed with the green of fel. She was a rogue who had tried to sneak into an alliance encampment and assassinate Erich with her filthy Horde friends. She was a prisoner who had to be processed for information and then sent to the stockades in Stormwind. She was Talarian's little girl who called her Auntie and liked climbing trees with Caledra all those decades ago. This was too much for her to bear now.

Caledra sighed and placed her left hand on her forehead. "Ah, Talaena, what am I going to do with you." she muttered.

Her niece heard that. "What is the matter Aunt? Is everything alright?" Talaena asked, her voice so much like her mother's. Urbina had been a gentle soul, and Caledra wondered what she would think of her precious little child becoming an assassin.

"No, Talaena, It is not. I was just thinking what your mother would say if she saw the two of us right now. Do you have any idea what you have done child?" She raised her head to look at her niece.

Erich had been devastated when he had found Rodrigo's corpse. He had not cried – of course. Humans loved hiding their emotions. He had simply watched the bloodied remains of his friend in mute shock. He just stood there for hours taking in the bloody sight while others came and went in to take a look for themselves. If not for his heavy breathing heard throughout the room, he might as well be a statue. None of them had slept that night. Erich had tried to look for Rodrigo's head over and over again, but never found it. It would seem that the Assassins had taken it for a trophy. Caledra had left with a few Sentinels to move Talaena to the town hall. Now Su'ura Swiftarrow's Sentinels guarded her in her prison.

When she had returned, she had found Erich alone and hunched over the bleeding body, holding a severed arm in his hand. She heard him murmur something about resting in peace, and apologies. What haunted her was the last words he spoke. "You never told me your little girl's name Rodrigo. Now she will grow up without a father. I should have let you leave before we embarked."

"Erich, it is almost dawn." Caledra had reminded him. Ever since handing over Talaena to the sentinels, he had not left the room. Even now he kept holding Rodrigo's arm as a momento.

He looked up, his eyes red. She had been wrong. He had waited until everyone had left before crying. He sniffed and rubbed his eyes. "I am sorry, I lost the track of time. I have work to do." He slowly got up to leave. Outside, the sky began to lighten, the inky blackness slowly giving way to a deep shade of purple.

He was out of the doorway when Caledra said, "The prisoner has been put in custody. She is in the town hall." Erich paused at that.

Without turning back he said, "I just have one question. Why would another elf want to kill me? Or be working with these...Forsaken and goblins for that matter?" He waited for an answer even as he rubbed his eyes.

"The Quel'Dor- I mean the Sin'Dorei have been staunch members of the Horde for the last few years. While we are at open war with the Horde as a whole, the Blood Elves largely keep themselves out of the conflict. This does not mean that lone adventurers or mercenaries might not want to join the war effort."

He snapped back to look at her, all sense of fatigue and sorrow gone from his eyes. "It would seem that I have become embroiled in a war I know very little about. Have Melrick prepare a briefing for me regarding the Alliance and the Horde their goals and dispositions and have it delivered to my room.

"Melrick is dead." She replied in response to his request.

That really caught him by surprise. Erich looked at her dumbfounded for a moment before saying, "How?"

"The assassins seem to have struck the town hall first before moving in on the tavern. Melrick stayed up late and was their first victim."

"I take it they did a similar thing to his remains?" Erich clenched his jaws as he asked.

"Worse." Caledra said. He did not need to know about the half eaten body found by the Sentinels in the dead of the night.

"Is there anything else I need to know?" Erich asked and yawned.

"The prisoner is my niece." She answered.

"I see." Erich sighed. "I suppose this was an awkward family reunion eh, Captain? That takes physical torture and execution off the table. Just make sure she is not in a position to kill or harm anyone else."

"Wait, you will just let her be?" Relief and worry vied for her heart now. Caledra had been dreading telling Erich this. Even the most kind hearted alliance commander would have executed Talaena at the first opportunity. An assassin was an assassin and there was no way around it.

"I indirectly caused a family to be destroyed last night, Captain Dawnbreeze. I would not start this morning by destroying another." Erich smiled sadly. He then continued. "Now, I am going to assume that all of Melrick's duties will be handled by you. We can chalk out a plan about this later." Erich leaned against the wall to hold himself upright.

"Get some sleep Captain. You are in no position to drill the troops today." She made to block his way. The human clearly needed rest.

"Luigi's going to have his hands full. Phillip is waiting for me to jog up and see the dawn breaking over the town." Erich yawned even as he protested.

"I will tell Luigi to drill them without you. Phillip will understand." She spread her arms wide to stop him. The human seemed to have lost his wits. Wandering outside the town when there were Horde assassins on the loose was an incredibly dangerous idea.

Erich just shrugged and went back to his room. After a few minutes, Caledra left the upper floor of the tavern running downstairs to leave the charnel smell behind. She had her work cut out for her.

* * *

Talaena stared at her Aunt. She felt tired. The pair of them had not slept a wink ever since last night. Her target had knocked her out, and captured her. When she woke, she had found herself in a well lit room she vaguely recognized the outline of. A pair of Night Elven Sentinels had been keeping an eye on her. On seeing her regain consciousness, one of them ran out to inform someone. Her head had been throbbing intermittently since then.

Unlike most Warriors of the Alliance, the mercenary had been lean and lithe, almost like a rogue. Still, with the pommel of his rapier, he had punched her hard enough that Talaena felt the blow even now. When she had regained consciousness, she had considered running away. After all a single Night Elf would not be too difficult to take down, and the windows had been thrown open. When she got up to subdue the guard, her head shook and she almost collapsed again.

The sentinel returned with three other people. One of them was her aunt. Seeing a family member alive and well, even though she wore an alliance tabard was enough for Talaena to give up any plans she might have made for running away. Truth be told, she really didn't have the gear to make a break for it in the first place. Given the fact that Krog and the Deathstalker already had a head that matched Sylvanas' description, the chance of a rescue was unlikely. The pitfall of living in the shadows was that if you were caught, there was more often than not no escape.

The two others were night elves. The female wore heavier armour than her soldiers, with what seemed like Mithril plate protecting her shoulders and her chest. The male, with all the markings and beards that a druid possessed looked at her with concern. He cast a spell on her that slowly took her pain away, and she felt her head clearing. After an hour, she was as fit and alert as she had been during the time she had been reconnoitring Strahnbrad. Seeing that she was better, the two night elves left.

Her aunt had spent most of the day working at a table, marking documents and trying not to look at her. It seemed like a lot of work, and Talaena had given up trying to talk to her. Caledra would have ignored her. After all, much like father, her aunt excelled at ignoring people when she was working. The Sentinels meanwhile stared at her without much warmth. They were now armed with glaives bows and arrows, and Talaena did not doubt that they excelled at using them. Her chance of escape had vanished.

Around the time the sun began to go west, Talaena's stomach finally began rumbling. In all the action of the last day, she had forgotten that nearly an entire day had gone by since she had last eaten. Hiding meant that cooking fires were out of the question, and she largely had to sustain herself with Zhevra jerky that Krog seemed to have an excess of. For all the perils of being captured, she could at least look forward to food that was warm.

"I am hungry." She said in Thalassian

Her aunt had nodded. "I will get something for you." She said and left the room.

The two sentinels stood by the door and watched her every movement. She walked around for a bit to stretch her legs and took stock of the room. This place was clearly a store room. She could see the place where she had dropped in from the ceiling. The boxes themselves were Alliance supplies. Part of the room was filled with provender like salted meat, cheese and other durable food that would last an army on the march. Another part of the room was filled with iron and steel ingots with some more exotic materials occasionally peppering through. If Talaena had known that the Alliance had stored a large part of their food in a single storehouse, she would have considered setting the Town Hall on fire.

Talaena budged from her more destructive proclivities and plans when her aunt returned with a tray of food with covered plates on it. The Sentinels brought up two pairs of chair each and began to clear the table. She quickly peeked at the books. To her surprise it was an odd mixture. Books about the history of the Alliance, the Horde, intermingled with ledgers and papers that seemed to detail what amount of supplies were being used. The latter made sense. After all, Strahnbrad had all the hallmarks of becoming a major Alliance stronghold.

Their repast had been quick. Starving as she was, Talaena had attacked the portion of roast meat with gusto, forgoing the usage of cutlery to use her hands. The night elves had snickered at her while her aunt looked mortified, but she was hungry. It had a fine toothsome flavour that begged to be relished. Within a few minutes the only thing left on her plate was the slightly charred bone. Now, she busied herself with watching her captors eat.

"They made you a Captain, aunt?" Talaena smiled. Her captivity was going surprisingly well so far.

Caledra stopped eating and paused to pour a drink for the pair of them. "Yes, and now thanks to you I have to work like one as well." She passed a mug to Talaena.

It was filled with frothy beer. Talaena took a sip. The two sentinels stared at her with stares that were not the friendliest. One of them asked Caledra something. Talaena could make out some of the words. She knew that the Blood elves had been originally a splinter sect of Night Elves who had not parted with the gift of magic they had learned at the dawn of their civilisation. To think that with a little bit of effort she could learn a language was surprising.

"They say that this food is wasted on you." Her aunt said.

"I see, would they rather I starve?" Talaena said, staring at the two Night elves. Her aunt translated. One of the night elves looked at her squarely in the eyes and said a couple of sentences.

"They also say that it is not their place to question their superiors. The human must have had his reasons for feeding this food, even though undeserved. Although if her opinion had been taken you would have been given stale bread and water." Caledra said.

"So why would the night elves listen to a human? It seems rather unbecoming of ancient warriors of such pedigree and skill to bow down to a being that will grow old and die in the next few decades." Talaena replied. She did not have high opinions of humans. They were overly muscled, squat and broad faced. They stank, and had too high opinions of themselves for a race that had been handed down everything from their betters.

One of the night elves, with a shade of skin that was pink angrily said something. Her aunt graciously replied, "Any human who stands before a horde of angry ogres in the middle of the night is worthy of a warrior's respect. A human who massacres them with his troops is a person worth listening to. You wouldn't know anything about that would you, little assassin?"

Talaena snorted. "I have seen many warriors, and assassins for that matter who can dust through an army of Ogres." That much was true. She had fought in the Blade's edge mountains and against several clans of marauding ogres on Draenor. A bunch of ogres was not that big of a threat, no matter what the night elf might think. "Maybe you should leave the rural confines of your forest sometimes. The world is a bigged place than you think." She smiled as politely as she could.

The night elf got up and stared at her angrily. Talaena simply smiled. It seemed that she had managed to get under the warrior's skin. Her aunt told her something and she sat down, fuming angrily.

"What did she say, Aunt? Does she want to strangle me for insulting her precious human." Talaena grinned broadly. The drink was beginning to get to her head.

Her aunt stared at her coldly. "Sentinel Melina is right. You are insolent, just as your mother before you. Make no mistake. The only reason why you are not being executed right now is because I pleaded with the human on your behalf. He knows that you and I are family. I have half a mind of letting him know that you are not going to cooperate with us." There was a bit of hurt in her aunt's eyes, _her eyes,_ as she said it. There was also determination.

"You would sell out your own kin for some human's fancies? There's that aunt I know. The Aunt that abandoned her family to be killed by the Scourge." Talaena's smile vanished as she said that.

Her aunt looked at her, her expressive blue eyes filled with hurt. "I fought at the front. I fought throughout the length of Silvermoon to hold back the Scourge. When the sunwell fell, I tried to look for you but our village was full of corpses, most of them walking." She sighed and clenched her fist.

"Make no mistake Talaena. I am an officer of the Alliance, and you are an assassin of the Horde sent to sabotage our war efforts. I wish it were not so, but you and I are enemies. If the order comes, as the ranking Alliance officer here, I will execute you myself. Then I will mourn for the loss of my kin, but I will do my duty. This is what it means to be a member of the Alliance."

Talaena was about to retort when she heard footsteps outside. From the sound of it, the person was walking at a quick pace, and the sounds were getting closer. In contrast to the light steps of the elves, the strides here seemed to be loud as the ringing of a bell. She was not the only one to hear it. Her jailers were already up and about, clearing out the table and standing up by the door. After a few minutes, she heard a knock. The lighter Night elf opened the door.

Her target walked in. Last night he had been half naked and armed with his rapier. Today he was clothed fully, wearing an outlandish garb that made of expensive cloth that had been artfully torn. Some members of Silvermoon's higher society, mostly magisters occasionally wore fashion while throwing balls. Safe within the walls of the ancient city and protected from the elements, they would occasionally dress up as rangers wearing the most expensive mageweave, silk and bits of exotic hides. The human's clothes gave off a similar feeling. With one massive difference. Below his belt, he wore a large piece of ornate leather fashioned in the approximate shape of a member. It struck out to her almost irresistibly. The human's codpiece was designed to bring the attention of everyone to his groin. He looked like someone playing a part in a ball.

In his hand she noticed that he carried a small bag made of linen. It's contents jingled, and sounded like metallic implements and tools. So this was it. The human was going to torture her. She steeled herself to meet his cruel excesses. After all, she had seen what the Scarlet Crusade would do to their own.

Instead the human talked to Caledra for a bit in a strange language. To her surprise, her aunt replied in the language with a fluency that seemed to rival the human's. They two of them looked at her once or twice, her aunt, with sadness and the human with no discernible emotion. After a while he nodded and took a seat, next to her aunt and opposite to her.

"Hello, Talaena Dawnbreeze." The human said, his common spoken with a somewhat mild accent. The tones of his voice indicated that he was someone used to commanding others. "I would apologize if I am I am butchering any names or places." He smiled a pleasant, fake smile.

He put a hand in his bag, and brought out her belt. Everything was neatly put into place. He placed the entire thing before her and brushed his hands over some of her tools. Seeing this human rummaging around the tools she had crafted with so much diligence made her angry. When his hand paused over the titanium bolt, she wondered how pleasant it would be to jam the thing into his throat and watch all the blood spurt out, covering her aunt.

"This gear has been hand crafted from what I can tell. Firstly, I would like to congratulate you for making such exotic devices. These explosives really are quite exquisite." He paused his hand over her titanium bolt again. "This is a quite beautiful work of art. Would you mind if I keep it?"

She snorted at his impudence and his false humility.

"I suppose that was a no. Quite a shame really. I would really like adding it to my collection." He sighed and put his hand underneath a table, bringing out a pistol. He put it on the table next to her kit and yawned. It seemed like a simple enough device, of the kind carried by pirates and rogues, but enormous care had been put into it's maintenance. The barrel, made of bronze glittered like truegold and the wood, polished to a sheen looked exotic on the rough wooden table. The faint stench of gunpowder lingered about the barrel.

"I know, my pistol seems so brutish and savage compared to the elegant tools you no doubt have crafted. However, I do care for it very much. Would you care to give it a try?"

She looked at him, stunned. Was the human telling her to try out his gun? As if anticipating her response, he picked his pistol up gingerly and offered it to her. "Please, take a look. This is a Nuln made flintlock. An object of human ingenuity. What it lacks in exquisite finery, it makes up for in ruggedness and reliability." He pushed the pistol into her hand.

Talaena was surprised. The human had put the pistol into her hand. Holding it, she shook it slightly. It was loaded. The human was mad. He had put a loaded pistol into her hand. Without thinking, she aimed the pistol at his head. The Night elves sprang into action. The pair of them nocked arrows to their bowstrings and pointed them at her. Talaena shouted in common. "Move a muscle and I will do to him, what he did to the goblin."

Her aunt shouted at them and they stopped aiming their shafts as her, although the arrows never went back to their quiver. The human looked like he had been hit by a shaman's lightning spell. "Well, I should have checked if my gun was loaded before putting it on the table." He muttered.

"Talaena, what do you want? There is no escape from here. Give the gun back and we can decide what to do with you." Her aunt shouted at her in Thalassian.

"I think not." She replied in common. "I have a list of demands that I want fulfilled, or I swear by the sunwell, I will blow his brains all over the table."

Her aunt started to retort, but the human raised his hand again. "Please. I don't want to die. Tell me your demands. I will see what I can do." His snivelling voice pleased her to a surprising degree.

"So, you are not so tough after all. After all these Alliance bitches vouched for you, your true colours have been revealed." She gloated.

"W-what did they say about me?" The human mumbled, his grey eyes wide open with terror. If the room had been any warmer, Talaena was sure he would have been sweating.

"Nothing of consequence human, just like your miserable kind. My demands are simple. Firstly. All my gear is to be returned to me. My Aunt will accompany me back to silvermoon, and I want supplies for the two of us for the journey. I have travelled to Outland to find any trace of my relatives, and would like for my aunt to come and live with me, safe from this war. That is all."

The human nodded and said. "I see. You want to kidnap a ranking Alliance officer and take her hostage far away from here, while using Alliance supplies to get away, while holding me as a bargaining chip. Am I right?"

The human's explanation of Talaena's terms infuriated her. The worst part about it was, he was right. Despite the fact that she had a pistol to his head, the human's articulation of her demands was largely correct if lacking in the gravitas she had put in them. She nodded.

"Listen, miss. I am a simple mercenary. I don't think the King of Stormwind would care much if you were to blow my brains out. Captain Dawnbreeze here is the person you should be pointing the pistol to. She is a ranking officer." The human was beginning to tremble.

"As if I would hurt my aunt. No, human. You are quite a valuable bargaining chip. Sylvanas Windrunner herself put a bounty for your head. This makes you an enemy of the Horde, and thus a friend to the Alliance. Having you as hostage is going to do fine. Just fill my backpack up with supplies, disarm my aunt and give me a horse. I will drag you to the edge of alterac and we will part ways there human. No one needs to get hurt. You get to keep that tiny brain of yours in your head, and I can finally be with my family again – or whatever is left of it."

The human exhaled and said. "I am sorry, I cannot do that. Please, miss. Put the gun down. Take a deep breath and we can all calmly walk out of here with our brains still in our skulls." He stopped shaking and began to breathe slowly and steadily.

"You seem to have made a big mistake human. I hold all the cards here. Either you do as I say, or I blow your head off. It is that simple." She held the pistol as firmly as she could in her right hand.

"May I please get up? I have to relieve myself." The human looked at her, his eyes narrowing.

"No. You sit here. Have the sentinels bring you a pot, or piss in your ridiculous manhood covering sheathe. I care not." Her hand hovered on the trigger.

"Please, this is a very expensive outfit. I can't let it go to ruin." The human pleaded desperately – too desperately for her – to escape. In return. Talaena spat on him.

Several things happened almost immediately. The lighter skinned sentinel nocked her arrow, her aunt got up in shock, and so did the human. Reflexively Talaena pressed the trigger. The hammer struck the firing pin. Nothing happened.

Almost immediately, the human backhanded her with his right arm. The blow was extremely vicious, and Talaena fell down along with her chair. Her head struck the hard wooden floor. The pistol had fallen from her hand. Of all the things in Azeroth, she had never expected the human to backhand her with such force. Her head swam from all the hurt. She curled up into a ball trying to protect her head and stomach

A booted foot kicked her side and she rolled over, staring at the ceiling. The human stood over her, his grey eyes now glinting with the same dispassionate stare that she had seen last night. There was not a single drop of empathy in those steel irises. He knelt down by her and drove a knee into her stomach, expelling all the air from her lungs.

He picked up the pistol. "You know, why I called the Nuln Flintlock an example of human ingenuity miss? It is not because of the shot it fires, but because of how it fires. You see," He paused and cleared his throat. "real flintlocks have a problem. They often misfire because of the mechanism that gives them their name. Now, when you pressed the trigger, the hammer hit the firing mechanism, but it was not there. It was here."

He pointed to another pouch at his belt and brought out a small pin. With practised ease he slowly placed it over the place and cocked the gun.

"There, all set and ready to fire. Elegant in it's simplicity is it not? No chance of bad weather spoiling your carefully loaded shot or your pistol exploding in your hands. In a way, the name flintlock is misleading, but I am an old dog and teaching me new tricks is an exercise in futility." As if to drive home his point, he brought the pistol over to her mouth.

"I had not thought you were so delicate and fragile miss. I seem to have drawn some blood. I suppose you more than paid for your spittle aimed squarely on my face." His finger gently touched the side of her face, with a touch so delicate that it would put any of her lovers to shame. He slowly ran his finger along the trickle of her blood and smudged it on his finger.

"Now,open your pretty little mouth or I will have to shoot you in the face." He brought his pistol over her eye. Everything around Talaena disappeared except for the barrel looking down on her. Slowly she complied.

As soon as her mouth had been opened, the human shoved the barrel down her mouth. Talaena struggled for a bit before realising that she did not have the power to dislodge the weapon from the back of her throat. The rest of the room was deathly silent. She glanced around wildly, seeing her Aunt stand behind her with her mouth on her hand. The Night Elven sentinels in contrast stood around impassively.

"Now, miss. Thank you for cooperating. Thanks to you, I know several things I was in the dark about. Would you like to know what they are?" He asked her in a tone reserved for friends and acquaintances. "Blink twice to say yes, or thrice to say no."

Talaena blinked twice. If he was talking he was not going to shoot.

"Firstly, I know that Captain Dawnbreeze here is your Aunt and the only surviving member of your family. Familial relations make the best leverage when threatening someone, often more than their own lives. Keep that in mind next time you are threatening someone." He smiled at her.

"Secondly, I know that far from my humble appearances, my arrival here has caused a great stir. I am a simple man, that plies my skills for money, as no doubt you are as well. I am now an enemy of the horde, and this Sylvanas Windrunner personage is no doubt desperate to put my head on her standard." He sighed and shook his head. "It is always the same thing. Some orc tries to put your skull on his totem pole, or some norscan, and now apparently some she-necromancer. This is getting quite tiresome."

"Thirdly, you will do anything to keep your aunt safe. This gives me leverage." He yawned.

"Now, as far as I see, you have a few options left for you.

Firstly you can do nothing and refuse to cooperate. Sooner or later the snows will melt an entire alliance army will be coming to reclaim Alterac. They treat you as a horde spy and execute you. Lady Swiftarrow suggests this option

Secondly, you can co-operate with us, telling us details about what you about the Horde and it's military might. You might be spared the executioner's axe. Of course, any friends you might have will disown you and you might never be able to return back to your home, with or without your aunt.

And thirdly, you can forsake your old allegiances to the Horde, and become a mercenary. Truth be told, I am vaguely impressed with the fact that you seized my gun and tried to bargain for your freedom and your goal. I am sure I can find a place for you in my motley crew of hardened soldiers and drunkards."

He got up and pulled his pistol out of her mouth. The two night elves stood over her and dragged her up roughly. Talaena's head was still spinning. He saw the human tinker with his pistol and return the firing mechanism back into it's pouch.

He turned to leave. Her aunt followed him with all the gracefulness of a mother hen. He turned to point the gun at her.

"Oh, and Talaena Dawnbreeze. Please do not try to escape. Otherwise I swear by all the gods I hold dear, I will kill your aunt." He clicked the trigger.

The hammer clicked and nothing happened.

The human left the room, with her aunt following him. Their voices intermingled in the hallway. Right now, all Talaena wanted to do was retch.

* * *

 _ **A/N, A big thanks to TheJackinati275, his correction gave me the idea to write this chapter the way I wrote it.**_

 _ **Machchia, Well humans in warcraft and warhammer react differently to magic. While writing Serra I tried to make it a bit more apparent. The way she uses magic is different from how mages in azeroth use magic.**_

 _ **Aburg76, yeah, Nuln pistols are serious business.**_

 _ **Solarblaster, Ah yes that would get all the good folks at the cathedral of light in a tizzy. I mean if tauren can become paladins because they worship the sun hard enough, A sigmarite can become one because he worships sigmar hard enough.**_

 _ **Rylomakin81, yeah, thank you for all those kind words. It brings me great joy to read people's reviews and the fact that you guys are interested in the stuff I am posting. I uploaded the first chapter here when I had drunk enough rum that it seemed like a good idea.**_

 _ **DIOS de la nada, Warcraft gods are largely neatly aligned to the Chronicles magic chart.**_

 _ **Guest, yeah. That was him.**_

 _ **Karl Franz, How do you like those seductive moves Talaena pulled on Erich?**_

 _ **medchtsia, can you explain what you said?**_

 _ **Guest, easy. Erich's boys are only so many. And they haven't been facing off against major lore characters directly, just adventurers.**_

 _ **Oracle14, I think I am balancing this well enough. When the creative spurt hits me, I tend to do a lot of work.**_

 _ **speaker of babbel, glad you liked it.**_

 _ **LordofBones, well what are you going to do. WoW is an MMO so the story will always resolve around giving players more boars to farm. On an unrelated note, I really hate void elves. Still waiting for my actual high elves to be playable.**_

 _ **CaptnDetergent, it really would not be a warhammer story if a gobbo got his head blown off once in a while.**_


	29. Chapter 29

**Guns and Gnomes**

* * *

Erich sat back, and yawned. Outside one of the owl pets that the Sentinels used as sentries hooted loudly. Apart from that, the town was silent. The Sentinels were patrolling the town at night now, while Hans' halberds would be patrolling during the day. Even the wind seemed subdued and it rattled against his window tonight. Ordinarily, he would be asleep by this hour, dreaming of simpler times, when he did not have to frighten young women by threatening to kill their family.

After the meeting with her niece, Erich had noticed that Caledra had been avoiding him. He supposed that was to be expected. After all, he had threatened her nice by promising to kill her if she tried to escape. No matter how many times he had tried to broach that topic with her, Caledra would go stiff and say that she had work to do. Erich could not begrudge her. After all, running a town of five thousand people was a lot of work. Even more if one had never handled that kind of work before. Being the ranking officer here, It was Caledra's responsibility that the town of Strahnbrad, still running on Alliance supplies earmarked for his men did not cease functioning. Money had to be paid for the work being put into repairing the town and people had to be fed, clothed and kept busy. Erich did not begrudge her that. Among other things, it allowed her to spend some time with her niece.

Talanea Dawnbreeze had scarcely waited for her next meal before agreeing to the second of Erich's demands. She would cooperate fully with the Alliance in exchange for information. What information Caledra had been collecting was none of his concern. He had only seen her once since threatening her. The poor girl had largely been scared out of her wits. Although older than him by many decades, it was clear to Erich that the girl was not wise to the world. She had seriously expected him to hand over a fully primed and loaded pistol for her to examine. Just like children, a little bit of baiting brought out information far better than any threat of violence ever could. Torture was sadists who could not find sexual release in whores. Smart men cajoled and vaguely led people into spilling their own secrets.

Now, she was busy taking notes that her aunt was dictating her. Erich had to admit. She would have made a fine scribe. Her handwriting was a joy to read and written in a manner so uniform that the printing presses of Nuln and Altdorf would have felt ashamed. Most of her notes were scrips of payment or orders signed by Caledra, directing people to work at certain places at certain times. It was drier than wine from Bilbali, which meant that the town was being run far more smoothly than before. During all this time, she was guarded by a pair of night elven sentinels, who would spend the night making sure that Talaena was safe and secure.

Not that Erich was worried that she was going to run away. The young elf – an absurd concept if there ever was one – did not want to lose her family so soon after finding her. She would have stayed in Strahnbrad if Erich had let her go. He had not been wrong. Her comrades had abandoned her as soon as they had run off with Rodrigo's head. By now they must be in that she-necromancer's tower presenting her with his friend's head to pass off as his. Erich had not cared much about the Alliance, or the Horde for that matter. But desecrating Rodrigo's corpse had turned business into something personal. As long as he was here, he would find this Sylvanas Windrunner persona and make her pay for the life she ordered to be taken in cold blood. Erich might not be a stranger to killing, but cold blooded killing felt like an affront to him. There was a reason why the devotees of Khaine, the brother of Morr were shunned by every religious organisation. Even the worshippers of Ranald and Halflings were more welcome than them.

Meanwhile he had buried himself in his work – training and running the peasantry of Alterac into a fighting force that could hold their own in both the Altdorf Marketplatz, and in the thick of battle. To his surprise, Luigi had a knack for training men. While Erich – much to the approval of Hans – focused on bullying the recruits, his young First Sergeant focused on inspiring them to do better. After seeing his men become adept at pushing their pikes in a co-ordinated manner, Erich had given up on training them in the basics entirely. He came to realise, among his many talents ranging from blackmail to drinking, basic training was conspicuous in it's absence. Instead he focused on drilling both his men and other on something that was dearer to his own heart. And that something was Tactics.

The first time he had talked with the gnome was the morning he had interrogated Talaena. He had taken her kit to the blacksmiths to ascertain what it was she was carrying. Since they were busy 'warming their anvils' so to speak, they had pointed to the gnome. According to them it was engineer's work, and the Timble Wobblesprocket was his gnome for the task. Fittingly enough, the gnome was outside, working on his outlandish contraption that looked like a giant bird made largely of metal. Clockwork was a point of fascination among the Nuln College of Engineers and they made similar things. Of course they were largely things like mechanical horses, or griffins, not oversized chickens.

Despite his eccentric invention, the gnome had been surprisingly helpful. He had spent the next quarter of an hour going through all the things with a frown upon his diminutive features. To Erich, the entire scene had been comical. Just as he was about to leave the gnome had started talking.

"This one is a Gnomish GniteVision Goggle. It makes you see in the dark as clearly as noon without needing any torches." He said, pointing at a pair of goggles that seemed to have green tinted glasses. "They are made of emeralds." He had said in response to Erich's question about their strange hue.

"This one is a smoke bomb. The mechanism is clearly of gnomish make. Goblins wish they can make something this good and reliable. See the way the fuse is not really a fuse at all but a near instantaneous contact mechanism? All you have to do is pull the pin and wait. A few seconds and Boom! Instant smoke that is enough to cover a Draenei from horn to hoof." He then scratched his head. "This was patented Gnomeregan Technology. How did an assassin from the Horde have access to it?" He placed one of his tiny hands around his chin as he pondered what had caused something like this to happen. Watching the diminutive creature wrack his brains about the strewn assassin's kit reminded Erich irresistibly of children trying to find a misplaced toy. It was all he could do to not laugh.

"Now, this is interesting. This is a wrist mounted crossbow. Normally a device like this would not be able to generate enough force to penetrate a Gnomeregan data card." In the gnome's hand, the small crossbow fit perfectly enough. "However, take a look at this mister mercenary." The gnome said, pointing to the string and the metal of the bow. "The metal is made up of titansteel, and the string actually made up of what seems to be mammoth sinew. Between the two of them, she can probably skewer you with ease." He nodded at his hypothesis.

Erich's disbelief must have shown on his face because the gnome clucked his tongue and said. "It is always the same with you big folk isn't it?" Continuing in an annoyingly high pitched voice, he continued, " Ooh, how can something this tiny and cute be so deadly. I just want to put him in my garden and make him wear a hat! Ooh, I wonder if he can vibrate!" Thankfully, his voice regained it's normal cadence during the next sentence. "Take a look at this Mister."

He picked up a silvery metal shaped vaguely like a bolt but far thinner and sharper and placed it in the crossbow. After cranking it, he pointed it towards Erich and fired.

Erich ducked at the bolt flew by his ear at a speed that was much faster than it had any right to be. The sound of splintering wood and masonry caught his attention. He turned back to see the silvery bolt lodged squarely between the door of the smithy and the wall. A hole the size of the gnome's fist had appeared in the doorway. "You see? I told you. Size does not matter!" The gnome exclaimed triumphantly.

Erich was about to leave when Timble tugged at the hem of his duster. "Hey human, I want to see that pistol of yours."

Making sure that the device was not loaded, Erich had handed it to him. Timble looked at it straight in the barrel and blew upon it's firing mechanism and returned it back. Then he whistled and got busy on his clockwork chicken.

"Well, what do you think? Is this device not to your liking?" Erich asked, somewhat bemused that a fine specimen of Nuln's craft had been passed back to him without any comment.

"No, it is nothing special. Good day to you." And he was busy sorting out parts while whistling to himself.

Erich was livid. "What do you mean it is nothing special. This flintlock does not care about the weather. The worst downpour and it will not misfire. I paid a hundred gold coins for this. This was handcrafted for me by one of the finest gunsmiths in Nuln!"

Timble simply tittered at that. He looked like a big, bearded child laughing at a joke. "It is not a flintlock. There is no flint there, mister. It uses a cap to fire. That hammer there strikes the cap, which starts a small flame that ignites the powder which propels the shot. We mastered making this a century ago!"

Erich was nonplussed. This was perhaps the cutting edge of human engineering ingenuity. Myrmidia's blessings and the work of hundreds of students at the forge city of Nuln had gone to make this design a reality – according to what the gunsmith had told him at least – and this tiny creature here was laughing at it. Erich had to say something to protect the honour of his race.

"If you think this is so primitive, why don't you make one?" Erich finally managed to retort. Even as it left his lips, Erich felt stupid. This was a childish thing to say at the best of times. Normally he would have been far more composed, but something about this Thimble Wobblesprocket was off-putting.

"One? One he say!" The gnome tittered madly for a moment before falling on the snow and laughing. After a minute he got up and said, "I can make you five hundred of these by the time the snows melt mister mercenary. Your men will never think about using a crossbow ever again. All I require is payment."

"How much?" Erich asked. Surely Thimble was bluffing.

"Half a gold coin, or fifty silver for each one. So that should come down to two hundred and fifty gold coins, and another fifty for the ammunition you will be needing for them." The gnome spoke without breaking a stride.

"And they will not misfire, no matter how bad the weather is?" Erich asked.

The gnome looked at him and said. "The only way they can fire is if you press the trigger and place the firing pin in place. You should know human. You seem to have used yours quite frequently." Then he smiled smugly.

"Give me a piece of paper and I will have it made." Erich replied as fast as he could.

Five hundred of the Nuln Flintlock handguns to replace his crossbowmen all for a month's pay. This deal was on on the verge of being too good to be true.

"Now, before I have all of them ordered, I want you to make me a single one – to see if it is worth spending my money." Erich cautioned.

"I see. Come back next week and you will find it ready." The gnome replied flippantly

Erich had then left the gnome to go interrogate the elf prisoner.

Now, he stared at the weapon the gnome had given him, which rested by his bedside. Erich had to admit. The tiny fellow had delivered, and delivered with aplomb. Erich was still surprised when the ball flew through two layers of wooden doors to strike the masonry on the other side. Littorio had come this morning to see this device. The man always had an interest in machinery and he had long envied Erich's Nuln flintlock with the same amount of lust he coveted Rodrigo's dwarf made crossbow.

After this morning's excursion. All desire of the crossbow had vaninshed from his mind. He wanted those guns, and had offered to pay half the amount of money on the spot if the gnome could start making them. What was more, the man actually volunteered to help the gnome with any work needed to make the weapons. To the gnome's credit, he agreed to his help. It was exceedingly rare in the old world, for a personage of any height to ask help from anyone else. Dwarfs would rather die than let some human touch their master crafted spoons. The different engineers in the empire were always paranoid that someone or the other was going to steal their latest breakthrough that was going to change the world.

Right now, all that was in the back of Erich's mind. Caledra Dawnbreeze had finally paid her a visit. He noticed that she was stiff around him and more often than not her eyes fell to his pistol or his rapier. It would seem his bluff was working far better than he had intended. This was going to be troublesome in the long run. His liaison with the Alliance – an organisation he had been bound to for the forseeable future – was afraid that he was going to kill her, and do worse to her niece. Whatever her personal problems with may be, Caledra had at least spent the entire afternoon detailing a brief history of the Alliance, and it's constituent races. Erich's head still swam with all the information as he tried to process it.

An alliance of humans, dwarfs, elves and gnomes was one thing, but this thing about the Draenei was hard to wrap his head around. He needed time to think this entire thing sense dictated that he would stay with the Alliance as long as possible. If a leader of the Horde – made up of prissy elves like the young prisoner and legions of monstrous greenskins, their troll and beastmen allies – wanted him dead, that limited his employment prospects and general safety. It suited him just fine. He would rather fight alongside people he was more familiar with. Humans were humans, and the dwarfs here war far more genial. Even the gnomes were precocious and adorable – the antipode of halflings and mootlanders. Still, as long as they paid him, it was good. The only worry was what he was going to do when this war was over. Maybe he could find a ship and sail back home with his money and put his mercenary days behind him. After all, he was amassing a good stash of gold with his time here.

Erich sighed as he crawled back into bed. All those things would be in the distant future. Now all he had to do was to fall asleep. Doubtless, he would have more questions for the Caledra in the morning. Before falling asleep, the last thing he did was cock his pistol. Just to be safe.

* * *

"The mercenaries have put in an order for five hundred guns, with an invoice of three hundred gold coins to be paid to engineer Timble Wobblesprocket of Gnomeregan." Her aunt's voice drifted lazily in her ears. She sounded tired, and as if she had not slept well. Talaena could sympathise. The human was simply too volatile to be around. She had not seen much of him after his interrogation, and she was glad to keep it that way. Talaena was deathly afraid of one thing. If she went missing, Her aunt would be the one who would have to pay the price. After the human had left her, she had thought about her current predicament long and hard. She had already told the human nearly everything of value while holding his own pistol to his face.

His offers were did not leave much for her to choose. Talaena clearly did not want to die, of that much she was certain. She had braved the perils of Outland and Northrend to find the whereabouts of her family, and she had finally found her aunt. While they had not been on the best of terms, blood was still blood, and co-operating with the alliance meant that she could be close to family. In the end, it was not too difficult of a choice for her. When her aunt came the next morning, Talaena was ready. She promised to co-operate with the Alliance on the condition that her aunt be the person to vouch for her. This way, she could be closer to her.

Luckily for her, her aunt had agreed. She was rather busy now, and nearly all of Talaena's day was spent in writing notes and memos for the town of Strahnbrad. It would seem that the man they had assassinated in the town hall was in charge of running the town. Now it had fallen upon her aunt's shoulders and she needed someone to write down the notes that she dictated. It was by and large boring work, the kind of bureaucratic nonsense that rangers and the luminaries of Silvermoon's palaces and mansions seemed to despise. Still, it was not dangerous or life threatening. After a decade of sleeping in the woods, fighting all manners of monsters and people on two different worlds, writing notes was perhaps the change of pace she needed. This was relaxing. And furthermore it seemed that her aunt was good at it.

"So, how long have you been a bureaucrat?" She asked her aunt, jokingly.

Without looking up from a ledger she was studying from, her aunt replied. "A decade, more or less. I managed to escape to Dalaran when the Sunwell fell. Some magisters opened a portal around one of the minor spires and escaped. I was among the soldiers who were defending that position against the Scourge onslaught. Afterwards, most of my companions who were mages felt physically ill because they were dependent on the arcane magic." She closed her book and looked at Talaena squarely in the eyes.

"You used to have my eyes, Talaena. I suppose you have changed so much in the short time since the sunwell fell." There was no judgement in that voice, something that was common among the High Elves of Dalaran.

"I was alone, and scared. Until that day my father died and rose again as a shambling zombie before my eyes, I had never raised a weapon against anyone. I used to play with his hunting knives before, but never hurt anyone." Her eyes misted and she paused for a moment. "You taught me well."

"Taught you what?" Her aunt asked her.

"Wielding knives. Remember you used to teach me all those tricks rangers were taught when they were training? I remembered them, and used them to survive." Tears began to fall from her eyes.

Her aunt was crying as well. "I tried to return to Silvermoon, but the scourge was rampaging throughout Lordaeron. When the scourge made it's way to Dalaran, I went to Southshore and took a ship to Stormwind." She took a deep breath and continued. "I tried to do my best. My grasp on Common was good, and there was always a place for a translator at the petitioner's chamber. So I spent the years working there. When the sunwell was reignited by the Draenei, I returned on pilgrimage, and tried to look for my family. No one could tell me what had happened to my brother or his family. I even looked for a grave, and found none. My biggest hope, that the three of you had somehow beat the odds and survived the Scourge had been dashed. I returned to Stormwind and continued working here. All I had left was my job. When the call came for a translator for a strange group of mercenaries who had appeared outside of Southshore, I was sent here."

Talaena clutched her aunt's hands. "And that was how you found me." Her aunt squeezed her hands tightly. They did not speak. They did not need to speak. The fact that they had given up each other for dead all those years ago and tried to piece their lives back together for a decade before fate had brought them together on a wintry night in the ruins of the human kingdoms was a miracle in itself, not to be spoiled by crude speech. After a while, her aunt stopped sobbing withdrew her hands to compose herself.

"What do we do now Talaena?" She asked after a while.

"I don't know. As long as I can stay with my family – my real family – I will be happy. Even this place would be fine." Talaena replied.

Her aunt shook her head. "Child, I am an officer in the Stormwind army, and you were sent here by the Horde to assassinate Alliance leadership."

"But I am cooperating with the Alliance now. Surely that will have to count for something." Talaena protested.

"Yes, you are child. It still doesn't change the fact that you assassinated alliance officers instead of fighting them on the field of battle. They will treat you as a spy and a saboteur, not as a soldier." Her aunt looked worried.

"But I am an adventurer. I was summoned by the leader of the Forsaken to assassinate alliance leadership in Alterac because of the war. Why should I not be treated as a soldier?" She was beginning to panic now.

"Do you have proof of this, Talaena? If you were following orders given to you by a leader of the horde, then the blame lies on them, not you." Her aunt's voice trembled.

"My backpack. My order was sealed with a seal of House Windrunner." She answered.

Her aunt got up and went outside. Almost immediately a pair of the Night Elves entered the room and hovered by the door. Talaena noticed that both of them were armed to the teeth. They were not taking any chances with her. Good behaviour was well and all, but as far as they seemed to be concerned, she was just waiting to slip a knife into the human's back. It was just like the Alliance. Always suspicious of those who were in their power. When the Blood Elves were on the verge of extinction, the Alliance had sent spies to sabotage their arcane sanctums. The horde had helped them. Even now, when all Talaena wanted to do was stay with her aunt, they still treated her as a foe to be killed.

After an hour, her aunt returned with her bag. The Night elves saluted her smartly and left. The two of them were alone again. She reached into the bag, and began to read the letter. After a while, she sighed and put it down. "Talaena, I read the letter you were sent. It was a simple letter of acknowledgement that Sylvanas Windrunner sent to you as a budding champion of the horde. This does not prove anything."

Talaena slammed her hands on the table. "That is how the Banshee Queen works. She never sends you a direct summon to do her deeds for her. It is always something like this. An invitation from up and coming members of the horde. A letter of support to a faction of magisters, with the desire to meet them. Her shadowstalkers then dog you around, making sure that you acknowledge her interest in you by visiting her in Undercity. Then she tells you what she wants." Talaena covered her face with her hand. "I had to agree to what she had said. Even when our race was on the verge of extinction after the civil war in Quel'Danas, she sent Lor'themar Theron a letter of congratulations on his deft leadership of Silvermoon. The next thing we knew, our ships were setting sail for Northrend to support the horde war effort." She smiled. "Your former boss is quite the cunning leader. I had no choice."

Her aunt was silent. Talaena wondered if she had ever wondered about this. What she was telling an officer of the Alliance would be held as treason in the Horde. The internal machinations of the various groups in the horde would be valuable to the Alliance both in peacetime, and during the war that raged around the world now. She was on the verge of becoming a pariah in Silvermoon, and the rest of the horde. If word got out, the deathstalkers would be after her head.

"Talaena, are you absolutely sure about this?" Her aunt asked her. She nodded.

"Erich did mention that he would not mind if you became a mercenary for him. A short stint as a mercenary working for the alliance would be proof enough that you are not working for the horde." She muttered, almost to herself.

"What? Place myself at the service of that, _that man?_ I would rather die." Talaena declared. Under her mortification was the sense of incredulity. The human had played with her emotions ever since he had entered her room with her kit. Every move he had made had been calculated to put her guard down and spill out information. The soft smiles, the interest in her tools, the way he had nearly forced his pistol into her hands. She had been so blind, and he had played her to the hilt. Talaena had always wanted to prove herself in the world, and like a mana wyrm detecting an arcane sanctum, the human had played her weakness into spilling far more information than even the most gruesome torturer would have gotten from her. Humans might be more brutal than the Sin'dorei and somewhat stronger physically. Being outsmarted by one rankled her.

"Talaena listen. If you co-operate with the alliance, they will still put you in the Stormwind Stockades for a long time on charges of spying and assassination. Varian Wrynn despises assassins. His father died to a horde assassin, and I doubt he will treat you with leniency." Her aunt replied.

"But, that mercenary threatened me, and he threatened you! How can you even come up with such a preposterous idea. Humans are brutish creatures, and they are impotent in protecting their allies. Prince Kael'Thas gave up everything to fight the scourge, and the Alliance nearly killed him off, along with all our best people that survived the scourge's onslaught. Why would this human be any better?"

"Because, as he mentioned, he is a mercenary. Not a member of the alliance, or even from around here. He seems to be pragmatic enough, and had a half elven companion who seemed to hold him in high regard. Every human is not Othmar Garithos Talaena."

"And how would you know that?"

"Because I lived among them for many years. For every human that has ever insulted me for being an elf, a dozen others have been sympathetic to my plight. The people of Stormwind lost their homes during the wars with the horde. Thinking that every human is Garithos only ends up driving the ones who could have helped us farther away. I will not judge our kin in Quel'Thalas for what they had to do to survive, but claiming that the humans have always wanted to kill is false. I am proof of that. The high elves who still live in alliance lands are proof of that."

"Then tell me this. What happens when the human is defeated? I will be working for a mercenary who is wanted dead by the leadership of the horde. The horde is unstoppable. I know how badly the war is going for the alliance. The nation of Theramore is besieged and the night elves are not able to push the horde out of Ashenvale. A single band of mercenaries, no matter how good cannot stand against such power." Talaena stated.

She had seen the captured banners and supplies of the alliance being put on display in Silvermoon. Night elven, Stormwind and Gilnean standards were heaped in the bazaar like produce from harvest. The ambassadors had been sensible enough to keep the grislier trophies away from the populace. It surprised her that the Alliance still had the capacity to keep fighting after all the defeats it had suffered.

"I have seen these mercenaries fight, Talaena. The Deathguard, the best of the Forsaken fell to them on the field of battle like a forest troll to Farstrider arrows. There is a reason why Sylvanas specifically wants Erich dead, and it is because he and his men have humiliated her, not just defeated her, personally humiliated her. I fought under Sylvanas, I know how singleminded she was in life. Until the Mercenaries arrived here, the Alliance was on the backfoot. We had nearly given up on every place north of the Thandol Span. If you work under him, it proves to the Alliance that you are willing to work against the Horde. Your petition of clemency will be entertained if he vouches for you." Her aunt went on.

Talaena felt overwhelmed. She might have left the relative safety and comfort of Quel'Thalas to search for her family, but her journey had changed her outlook both on herself, and the horde. No longer was she a fragile girl seeking comfort in the arms of others. She had tested herself, and she had found herself to be strong. To give up that independent spirit and work for a human who had threatened her family felt wrong, but her aunt insisted that it would go a long way in trying to make amends for her life as a member of the horde.

The pragmatic part of her brain won out. After all, it would be too cruel for her to be separated from her family. She simply nodded and said. "I will try. If he will have me."

Her aunt nodded and returned to her ledger. Talaena returned to her quill. Now that their argument about her future was over for the time being, they returned to their allotted work. After all, there was no need to sully the few moments they had together with thoughts of the future.

* * *

Erich's 'office' unsurprisingly was in the cellar of the tavern. Caledra was not surprised. The human seemed to be magically drawn to the largest source of alcohol wherever he was. When they were marching on Pyrewood, his argument with Garrick had ended in him getting placed in the rearguard with the supplies. Now, in Strahnbrad, he held his 'court' in the basement of the tavern, with the barkeep acting as doorman and procurator of drinks for the tavern, all at the same time. It lent an air of informality to the entire operation, which seemed to suit the mercenaries just fine. From her limited conversations with their Sergeants while teaching them Common, she had realised that Erich was of noble blood. She did not know what the title 'Altgraf' meant, but it was clear that the way Erich commanded his men on the battlefield was suited for a person who had been raised since birth with the expectation that he would command, and his underlings would obey.

At the same time, no noble would even think of holding court next to barrels of drinks and provender. For a start, the place was noisy and dirty. The sounds from the tavern would sometimes be so loud from the raucous laughter and song that they could barely hear themselves. Whenever Erich would get bored with conversations, he would stretch out his hand and grab himself a mug of ale. There was a sense of disorderliness in that underground space. It seemed an odd mixture of an Alliance officer's desk, tavern and warlock's coven all rolled into a sordid mess at the middle of which sat Erich Von Peiper.

Caledra stood behind Luigi. The sun was beginning to set and Erich seemed to be inside, talking to someone. The language being spoken alternated between Common and Reikspiel, but in the ambient noise of merrymaking in the inn, it was nearly impossible to figure out what was being said. The Barkeep alternated between serving drinks, and keeping a watch on the door. She noticed that he had begun hiring tavern wenches to help serve the drinks. If nothing else, camping here for the winter had certainly boosted Strahnbrad's fortunes.

After a few minutes, the door opened and two figures walked out. One of them was familiar to Caledra. The old Sergeant, Littorio was an affable enough man, soft spoken and given to fits of drowsiness when he was not being engaged in conversation. His manners strongly reminded Caledra of the older citizens of Stormwind whose children had gone off to war and who spent their time feeding the birds and squirrels in the erstwhile park. It had always seemed strange to her that a person like this was part of Erich's hardened band of killers. She had seen old human fighters. People like Sage Truthbearer and the legendary Anduin Lothar made everyone else in the room feel like children from their very presence. Comparing them to Littorio was like comparing a dragonhawk to a dragon. Littorio greeted her with the proper words in common. The older man had been hard at work making sure that what he learned was fit for speaking in polite company. In this way, he was completely different from the rest of Erich's sergeants. His behaviour was far more reserved. He reminded her of scholars in Silvermoon who would remain buried in their books for decades at a time.

The other person was a gnome with a shock of green hair and wearing goggles that made him look all the more comical. Caledra had to think for a moment before she realised who the gnome was. Timble Wobblesprocket, a gnomish engineer from Tinker Town had tagged along with the two dwarfs from Ironforge. The entire expedition northward had been an odd mix. Apart from Caledra and a small cadre of stormwind soldiers to guard the supplies, nearly everyone else had followed them on their own.

Right now, Littorio was looking at the gnome darkly. Meanwhile the gnome seemed almost red as a beet, and the way he stumbled made it clear that it was drunk. He did not even extend any form of greeting to them. He walked up to Talaena and tugged at her leather leggings. "Excuse me missy. Are you the person who made the Titansteel crossbow?"

Her niece simply nodded. Caledra felt confused. Did the gnome know Talaena?

As if to answer her, he tittered and continued, "That was damn fine work on the frame. Almost as good as if it were made in Gnomeregan. The triggering mechanism was flawless. You really have some talent at engineering, unlike this old fogey here." Littorio's dark stares at the gnome became understandable. He shrugged and left. The gnome meanwhile ambled around the counter and found himself a table before falling asleep.

The barkeep made a sign for them to wait and began descending downstairs. Luigi looked behind them and grinned as recognition dawned on his face. "Captain Dawnbreeze, how are you doing? We haven't seen each other since last week."

"I am doing fine Luigi. How goes your training?" She replied. In contrast to the caustic drunken behaviour of Erich, Luigi's optimism and cheer made him a far more agreeable person to talk to.

"They are learning very fast. I was actually here to talk to the Captain about that. He also mentioned something about handguns, that I was curious about, What brings you here to his offices?" He asked.

"It is about the prisoner, Luigi. Erich made her an offer last week, and she is considering it. So I brought her here to meet him." She replied. This much was true at the least.

Luigi looked behind her and waved. "Hello madame, it is the second time I have had the pleasure of meeting you."

Her niece looked like she had seen a ghost. She muttered something about the lich king in Thalassian before replying in common, "I am sorry, but I don't seem to remember you." Her face gave the impression that she had.

Luigi simply chuckled. "Well the last time I saw you, you were unconscious and I was helping Captain Dawnbreeze take you to the Town Hall. I hope your stay was not too comfortable. You are a prisoner after all." He smiled at her.

Talaena simply nodded. Caledra was surprised. Half an hour ago, she could not stop talking about how working for human mercenaries was beneath her. Now she seemed to be afraid. "What is wrong?" She asked her niece in Thalassian.

"Who is that human?" Thalaena asked, her face a frown.

"He is Luigi, the second-in-command of the mercenaries. Who do you think he was?" She replied testily.

"He looks like the spitting image of Arthas Menethil."

"What are you talking about Talaena?"

"I am saying that the human you were just having a friendly conversation with looks like the Lich King as he was all those years ago."

"Are you insane Talaena? He is barely out of boyhood. He can't be more than twenty five years of age." This was beginning to get absurd.

"And so was Arthas when he led his kingdom to ruin and destroyed Quel'Thalas." She replied furiously. "What sort of strange beings are you working with Aunt?"

"They are simple mercenaries Talaena. They drink, they quarrel and they fornicate, just like any other sapient beings. Luigi just likes talking to people." Caledra answered.

"Excuse me, Captain Dawnbreeze, were the two of you talking about me?" Luigi interjected.

Caledra looked at him for a minute, scrutinizing his features. She could not see it. Yes, Luigi had shoulder length golden hair, green eyes and a facial structure that was somewhat similar to the fallen prince, but he was far too lithe to be mistaken as Arthas. As a matter of fact, nearly all of the mercenaries – with the notable exception of the burly Hans – were skinnier on average than the humans of Stormwind. They had a lean and slightly feral air about them, as they they were like a pack of wolves who were out hunting after the winter. As for Luigi, he seemed a lot less driven person than what the Lich King supposedly had been in life. In life, Prince Arthas was supposed to love his people so much that he had been driven to extremes to save them, thus ironically damning them. Luigi seemed like the kind of person who would delegate such decisions to his captain and join the merrymakers around the campfire. Her niece seemed to be rattled by the fact that she was about to meet Erich.

"Yes, we were Luigi. My – The prisoner thought that we were to meet Erich next. I explained to her that you were in line first and we will have to wait. She is just a little shaken." Caledra sighed inwardly. She had almost told Luigi – in common no less – that the prisoner was her niece. Erich knowing it was one thing, but a half full tavern was another. Word would get out and any chance Caledra had of saving her would be diminished."

"Oh? You can go ahead first. I am sure you must be busy enough managing our swaddling clothes all day. I can wait." He waved them in.

At this moment the barkeep came up. "He will see you now." Erich shouted something from downstairs. "All three of you." With that he went back to where he was before.

The three of them entered the cellar. Erich was sitting on a chair, spinning something on a table. It sounded metallic. From this distance it was hard to tell. Suddenly Erich looked up and said, "Why are you here?" From the way her slurred, it was clear Erich was drunk.

Caledra spoke first. "The prisoner wants to take you up on your offer." She said. Erich made no sign that he had heard.

"Captain, I am here because you told me to drill the men using handguns." Luigi answered him.

Erich scratched his head and said, "Please, take a seat. All of you." He cleared his throat as the three of them took seats next to each other. "Luigi, I have to be frank with you. The midget seems like he is not going to deliver his five hundred handguns on time. So far, he as built a single one. Today Littorio came here to complain about him. It seems that instead of manufacturing those weapons, he spent most of his money trying to get his toy working." Erich spoke in Reikspiel

"Hmm, that is a shame. Five hundred Handguns would have been a game changer as far as our capabilities went." Luigi replied, frowning.

"Yes, I know. I was drawing up some of the more advanced tactics the Ironsiders used when they were drilling when I got to know that the halfling had shortchanged us." Erich grinned. "They are all the damn same aren't they? Big words and little to show for it."

"What seems to be the problem?" Caledra asked.

"The day I interrogated her" Erich said, jabbing a thumb at Talaena, "I wanted to get her gear checked. So I went to the blacksmiths, who sent me to Wobblesprocket, who told me he would make me five hundred guns in a month and a half. I sent you the invoice and paid the bugger out of my own pocket because I wanted it. As it turns out, he spent all the money buying parts for his clockwork bird. Now, he had come here to put the blame on my man, complaining that he could not keep up." Erich snorted. "I should have known it was too good to be true. Now, what are you here for Captain?"

Caledra sighed, before switching to Common. "The prisoner has thought about your request, and is considering joining your outfit to dedicate her loyalty to the Alliance."

Erich smiled at that, a cold - almost predatory – smile, "Considered joining my outfit. You hear that Luigi? The young lady who killed Rodrigo now wants to join our Company as a fellow mercenary." He laughed at that – a mirthless laugh that left no doubt as to what he really thought of her niece. "Pray tell, why would I want the killer of my friend to join my men?"

"I did not kill your underling, human." Talaena replied.

"Can you prove it elf?" Erich asked

Talaena did not reply.

Erich was about to say something when Luigi spoke up. "I can, Captain." Erich turned to look at him

"What do you mean?"

"Captain Dawnbreeze and I carried her to the town hall to confine her. Let me ask you something captain. How much blood was there on Rodrigo's remains?"

"Almost none. It was all over the wall and the bedsheets. He had been bled out, slowly and deliberately." Erich replied. His face grew grim and he shot Talaena a dark look

"Exactly. How much blood was there on the walking corpse that tried to kill you?"

"He was drenched with blood." Erich said.

"Now, the prisoner. I can personally vouch for the fact that she was not bleeding. In fact, when the Captain and I stripped her gear off her, it was in largely pristine condition. Meaning that the prisoner was not involved directly or indirectly in the mutilation of Rodrigo." Luigi finished his point. Caledra was impressed. The young man had shown his overlord a logical reason for why Talaena could not have murdered him directly.

Erich however seemed furious. He slammed his head on the table and asked Luigi in Reikspiel, "What the hell do you think you are doing boy? Why would you take some pointy eared tart's side over your slain comrade's? Is that your father's Bretonnian blood seeping through your veins? That bitch killed Rodrigo. At the very least she abetted him being turned into mincemeat."

In contrast to Erich's outburst, Luigi seemed like the picture of calm and quiet. "I am doing as you taught me. To think with my brain, not with my heart. Rodrigo is dead, and we will avenge him. The ones who took his head are still at large. We will start with them Capitan. This elf knows who they are, and who they work for. It ill becomes us, those that worship Verena's daughter to put our petty hatreds in front of justice."

Erich began to breathe slowly and steadily as he turned over Luigi's logic in his mind. After a while, finding no fault in it he sighed and unclenched his fist. When he spoke, it was in Common. "Rodrigo wanted to come to my latest venture as a last hurrah. I could easily have paid him off, you know. Let him retire in peace in Tobaro with his wife and child. He never even told me their names." He rubbed his eyes.

When he next looked at the elves, it seemed to Caledra that he was having difficulties holding back his tears. "Suppose, I do allow you to join my mercenary band, what exactly can you do Miss Dawnbreeze? I have no use for assassins who can't even kill the target they were given."

Talaena replied. "The gnome. He is lying to you."

"What do you mean?"

"He hasn't made those guns because he has no one to supervise their manufacture. When gnomes make something, they do their utmost to make sure that the device is safe for the user and made to a specific degree. A single gnome can't keep up the pace you mentioned without going mad from overwork."

"And you know this because?"

"I was taught engineering by a gnome." Talaena smiled at Erich.

"Wait, I thought that the Blood elves and the gnomes were on opposing sides in this war." Erich replied.

"An individual is not their kind. I am sure you would know." Talaena shot back.

"So what are you suggesting elf?" Erich asked her.

"You clearly need those guns, and the gnome needs a person who knows engineering to manufacture them fast enough. I am saying that I am the perfect elf for the job. You get your weapons, I prove that I have abandoned the horde by making guns for the Alliance."

Erich did not say anything for a moment when he listened to Talaena's proposal. He turned to Luigi after a while and said, "Do you honestly believe a word she said?" in reikspiel.

"The halfling praised her handiwork in front of half the tavern. He is probably asleep up there even now. Why don't you ask him instead of me." Luigi shot back.

Erich turned to her niece and said. "Ok, miss Dawnbreeze. Consider yourself on probation. Help the short green haired midget make my guns for me, and I will make sure you and your aunt live happily for the next thousand years." He smiled. "Sabotage my men's equipment, and I will let you leave for home. With your aunt's corpse." His smile vanished.

The three of them got up. Erich went back to playing with the metallic object in his fist. This close, Caledra was sure that there had been no mistake. It was a single copper coin.

"Erich, if I may ask, what is that?" Caledra said, trying to lift the sombre mood. She was sure he would not follow through with his threat. Despite all his drunken bluster, the man was not capable of cold blooded murder. After all he had allowed a starving people into Strahnbrad and paid them fair wages from his own coffers.

He tossed the coin to her. She caught it. It had the profile of a human face on it's side, wearing a helmet shaped like a gryphon's beak. At the bottom a few sentences were written in Reikspiel. They spelt REX KARL FRANZ. She tossed it back.

"It was the first coin Rodrigo ever earned under my command. Tell your niece that she standing on the edge of a razor. Myrmidia willing, she will never have to find how far I can go."

* * *

 _ **A/N, So the previous chapter ended up generating a lot of discussion about what I should do with Talaena. First of all, I would like to thank you very much for giving me several ideas that I have tried to combine together in this chapter. Several of you were of the opinion that Talaena could not be trusted because she had played a part in the murder of Rodrigo and henceforth should never become a mercenary. At the same time, I had made it very clear that she had nothing to do with the actual deed itself. Your ideas were quite valuable in letting me craft a way where Erich is forced to take Talaena for her skills, but is distrustful of her. The fact that he cannot think objectively regarding this matter also showed that he is not as objective as he wants to be. Furthermore, it allowed me to introduce Luigi as something more than just a blond pretty boy - laying out the facts making sure his mentor would make the correct decision when he held someone's future in his hands. So as a result of this, Talaena has been offered a way out, but she is going to work her ass off for it. It also allowed me to cast a small light on Littorio and Luigi's backstories, something I will be exploring as I continue this story.**_

 _ **Darknessfalls123, exactly. And Special forces don't fare too well in pitched battles against well supplied, equipped and ably led soldiers. While Erich and his men would wipe to most dungeon bosses in WoW, they can also turn the tide of battle because they know how to fight in a group and have more sophisticated tactics than to charge head first into the enemy.**_

 _ **Solarblaster, Rodrigo actually wanted to retire. Erich has been grooming Luigi as his successor. The entire point of Talaena acting tough was to show that she is basically your average blood elf adventurer who just goes of on adventures for personal reasons and to brag about it back in silvermoon. When push comes to shove and Erich threatens her family, she is bound to crack.**_

 _ **ArcherReborn2, When I started this story, I had no idea it was going to be so extensive or it was going to be a learning experience for me. The fact that people are engaging with some of the characters I have created makes me very happy. Thank you for the kind works.**_

 _ **Emperor's Forsaken, Yeah, it gets hard sometimes.**_

 _ **medchtsia, I really doubt that Sven has the theological knowledge to differentiate between a chosen of Ulric and a skinwolf. Hans is the more experienced Ulrican, and he nearly fainted when he saw the worgen charge out of the woods to kill the Forsaken north of the wall.**_

 _ **guest, you have very sharp eyes.**_


	30. Chapter 30

**Fire by Rank**

* * *

Erich stared at the gun lying in front of him as though willing it to fire. As was expected, it did not. If it had, he would have certainly been surprised. Willing a gun to fire was often a futile effort . Loading and firing it worked. Sometimes. Other times the weapon would just explode. Guns were a terrifying weapon to face for the foe. It was also terrifying to use a lot of the times. Erich could understand why the Tileans still stuck to their crossbows. They were easy to maintain, cheap as dirt and most importantly, did not cause hazards in their own ranks. A battlefield was a chaotic enough place without the weapons exploding in the user's hands.

Tomorrow was a big day for his mercenaries. So far Erich had imparted his education and knowledge of tactics on the peasantry of Alterac. He had been right about them, hungry half starving and eager to learn, they had been hard at work drilling. Of the thousand or so soldiers being trained by them now, Five hundred were on the verge of becoming proper well drilled soldiers. Erich did not know about their morale, but they could march hard and then turn on a dime. Manoeuvre was the most difficult task on the battlefield, and the one with the most potential. Forcibly turning an enemy's flanks when you were within arrow range required incredible discipline and nerves of steel. He did not know about the latter, but in the weeks he had been with them, they had been taught the virtue of discipline well enough.

Erich had to admit to himself, he had made a mistake with the young elf assassin. Littorio had confirmed it. Despite the old man's interest in clockwork and similar gadgets, he lacked the skill to make those guns and the gnome simply did not have time to teach him how to make complex firing mechanisms. At the same time Wobblesprocket needed someone who could make those devices and ensure that they were being well constructed. She had fit in nearly perfectly. It had been a couple of weeks since she had been put to work manufacturing the guns, and already a over hundred of the complete weapons were stored in crates at the town hall. Erich did not have much of an idea of how large scale production went, but by his reckoning it meant that fifty guns had been made in the two weeks, which meant that on average, they were making seven handguns a day.

Dawn was still an hour off, and Erich's mind throbbed from all the planning and drilling he had drawn up for the day. According to the worthy minds at Nuln's military academy, a trained handgunner should be able to shoot once per minute. If his men could fire that fast, it would make up for the faster rate of fire their crossbows offered them. After all, black powder weapons did tear armour with ease. Convincing his men had been the hard part. After a week of cajoling, Littorio had convinced his men to put aside their crossbows just this once for testing. It was now Erich's responsibility to turn in their crossbows for these handguns for a long time. Best get started now. He hoisted the gun, put on his duster and hat and walked outside in the gloomy darkness.

The tavern's guard had been doubled. Now halberdiers were posted around all the doors. They shivered in the cold, and covered themselves in their cloaks. Their new armour was hidden from sight. It had been a thing of personal pride for most of the men. Dwarf forged plate armour was something worn by Knights, not by the infantry under the rarest of circumstances, and the fact that they had high quality plate armour of their own was something to be cherished. As it was, they sharply saluted Erich. Their new armour had brought their enthusiasm for playing as State Troops of the empire back to the surface, and it had helped their morale. He could let them have their fun.

As Erich began to walk out in the street, a shadow passed near the edge of his vision. Reflexively, he brought his hand to his sword hilt. One of the Halberds ran up to him shouted something in the direction Erich was facing. A woman's voice responded from the darkness, and the halberdiers replied in kind. Erich was puzzled, turning to the man he asked, "What was that?"

"One of the night elves sir. They patrol at night, and we patrol during the day. We were just sounding each other off, making sure everything was clear." The man scratched his beard as he said that.

"Why was I not informed of this? Whose idea was it?" Erich asked.

"Well, after Herr Rodrigo was killed, we doubled the guard and started staying up all night. At the same time these night elves started patrolling the town to make sure that no one else was sneaking about at night. We had a couple of run ins and nearly started a fight a couple of nights in. So Herr Hans and their leader sat down and made us memorize call signs. I just gave that elf there an all clear, so she knows it's all good. Its just another day as a soldier." The man stifled a yawn.

"I see, when do you go to bed?" Erich asked. The man was clearly bored with his watch. Erich could empathise. Sentry duty was certainly not the sort of thing that was remembered in song. If the Empire told those that took the Emperor's Schilling that most of their time would be spent drilling for battle or acting as lookouts, the glamour of the Empire's heroic armies would take a dent.

"When the patrols start going out in the morning sir." The man replied. "Nothing much to do at night to keep your eyes open and occasionally see one of those owl pets the elves have fly overhead. I like it." He rubbed his eyes vigorously to keep the sleep away.

"You have elves running around the town at night, I doubt any man of the empire has seen what you have seen before son. I would have been a tad more lively if I were you." Erich smiled at the man.

"To be fair, you haven't been standing here all night watching owls fly over your heads and leave droppings on your cloak. It was fun the first couple of times, but these elves, apart from being incredibly beautiful and taller than any knight are just like us. They retire to their quarters when their watch is done, and so do we. Just doing the same job, sir" Clearly any interest the soldier had in elves had been sated. He continued, "So you going for your early walk sir?"

"No, I am afraid I am too valuable for that now. I have something I have to do today. You keep your eyes peeled." Erich left it off. Early morning conversations were something he had missed ever since Rodrigo had been assassinated. He was too valuable. Some enemy leader personally wanted his head upon her standard. In a twisted way, Erich's importance in the Eastern Kingdoms was much higher than it ever had been in the Old World. Still, he had to ply his trade somehow.

The training ground was deserted at this time. Apart from some of the flitting shadows that moved too quickly to be human, Erich was alone. Once or twice a figure walked up to him with a weapon drawn, and Erich saw a beautiful face with otherworldly eyes and a skin tone that was as strange as it was exotic stare at him with suspicion before leaving as silently as the darkness. The night belonged to the night elves, and he was just a guest. The implications of the silence was as intimidating as the roar of an orc war band.

It was no good pondering over mysterious elves. Erich had work to do. He brought out the and felt it's weight. In contrast to the imperial handguns, it was light. Around the same weight as a crossbow. So far so good. His men would not gripe about their weight at least. He brought out a ball from his pouch and dropped it in the barrel of the gun. Then he poured a measure of powder into it and rammed it home with the iron rod. After pounding it in five times, he stopped. The ball rattled loosely in the bottom of the barrel. He primed his handgun and raised it to his shoulder. Unlike imperial handguns, this was light enough to not require something to prop it up. Hands trembling with anticipation, Erich fired the gun. The stillness and cool breeze of the night disappeared in a haze of powdered smoke that smelled acrid. After a moment, the mound of snow he was firing at scattered. This weapon at least had fired perfectly.

But the test was not yet done. He placed the butt of the handgun on the ground and began to reload again, this time as fast as he could. For his efforts Erich was rewarded with much of his powder spilling out on the ground. This would not do. Again he dropped the ball and rammed the shot home, before priming his gun and firing again. The gun fired true the second time just as well. Erich was ecstatic. The world, his place, his tactics and all his plans disappeared. Now he was a child who had been given a new toy to play with, and play he would.

Erich fired almost continuously, not stopping until his shot was expended. By the time he had finished, several people from the nearby houses had come out to watch the spectacle. Blackpowder weapons were not subtle. Doubtless they wanted to complain about the noise. A few of the night elves had stopped to watch him shoot as well. They whispered among themselves before returning to their patrolling. Erich looked at the sky. It was beginning to turn pink. He had been shooting for roughly an hour, and all of his balls were empty. This meant that he had been firing at the recommended rate during all this time. His arms were sore and the barrel was hot enough to burn his finger if he touched it, but all that did not matter. It would seem the gnome and the blood elf were delivering.

Over the next hour, the trainees began to file in slowly and steadily. They were greeted by Erich cradling his gun and grinning bemusedly. His arm was beginning to get less as the muscles relaxed. It was a nice and bright day to start drilling the men. After a while his crossbowmen began to file in. Captain Dawnbreeze was among them, and a dozen men carried crates with them. While the Alterac peasants began to file in and start their morning drills, his men gathered around the crates and began chatting among themselves. There were roughly a hundred of them. Littorio was busy attacking the crates with a poker, opening them one by one. Erich noticed that just like him, the older man had his handgun with him. At the least he was open to the idea of blackpowder weapons.

The men began to gingerly cradle their weapons as they grabbed them from the crates. Littorio was in his element, ordering them around and and making sure everyone took a pouch of shot and a helping of blackpowder. Ever since Rodrigo's death, Erich had decided to disband his scouts and fold them into Littorio's men. This had increased their number by a quarter. Erich would have to depend upon others to scout for him. It was probably a smart idea all things considered. His men did not know the lay of the land at all.

After a few minutes, all of his crossbowmen had been armed with the handguns. Erich looked and Littorio and nodded. The older man began to load his gun. Erich spoke. "I want everyone to look at Sergeant Littorio. This is how you load a gun." He stopped to prime his handgun. "This is how you prime your handgun." A loud bang shattered the hum-drum of the training field. "And this is how you fire your handgun. Any questions?"

For the next hour, his crossbowmen practised loading the gun and priming it. These actions took up most of the time. Firing the weapon was easy. Loading it was readying it was the hard part. Erich wanted to make sure that his men did not make any mistakes. Meanwhile, out on the fringes, Luigi and Gareth went around making sure the peasants were drilling properly. Erich was impressed with their fortitude. What they were doing seemed gruelling and pointless on the training field, but it would save their lives in battle. A panicking soldier who broke formation would lead to the deaths of his comrades for a slim chance of survival. A formation of soldiers who held their ground would save their comrades and maintain unit cohesion for a good chance of victory.

"Alright boys, start firing. One by one." Littorio ordered. Erich watched the men begin to fire

Each soldier stepped forward by a pace, aimed his handgun forward and pressed the trigger. Almost instantaneously, each shot propelled forward and hit the mounds of snow that had been gathered at the edge of the training camp. This was excellent. Target practice was one thing. Massed volley fire was another. His men already knew the basics of firing in a battle. Aimed shots did not matter, as much as quickly discharging your weapon and then reloading. They were hardened veterans. They knew how to handle themselves. At the same time, the men were unused to firearms. It was clear in the way they handled their guns. Several men touched the barrel itself while readying to fire. This would have the unfortunate effect of scalding their fingers in a pitched battle.

Littorio was already on it. "lads, don't touch the barrels. You will burn you fingers. Hold the wooden base. Yes, just like that Grigorio. That's a good lad."

After a few more half hearted volleys, Erich decided it was time to actually teach them the basics of blackpowder warfare. Nuln was the forge of the empire, and it's tactics in the usage of blackpowder made the countess' forces the most advanced state trooper armies ever fielded by the empire. As Littorio organised the men into three rows, Erich mused on the fact. His teachings from his days at the academy returned. Older professors drilling the idea of logistics into the minds of dozens of young glory seeking nobles who only thought of war as a series of brave charges and glorious combat. An army marched on it's stomach, and fought with it's bowels. Battles were to be won by the combination of firepower and manoeuvre, not through individual bravery of select champions.

This concept was embodied this tactic was the volley fire system developed by the bright minds of Nuln. On it's own, a handgun was an oddity for a weapon. It was massively powerful but at the same time it fired too slowly and the smoke it made made visibility on the battlefield extremely poor. As a result, even in the Empire, most imperial forces only kept small contingents of handgunners, preferring to use raised levies of archers and crossbowmen for most of their ranged firepower. Nuln was an exception. It had thousands of trained handgunners, who fought in close ranks and protected by pikes. The idea was very simple. While firing en-masse, the raw firepower of the handgun was supreme. At the same time, the problem with visibility could be mitigated by proper planning by a commander. As for the slow rate of fire, it was solved by making the men fire their handguns sequentially. The first rank would kneel, fire and begin to reload while they knelt. The second rank would fire over their comrades shoulders before reloading. Then the third rank would fire. By the time the third rank had begun reloading, the first rank should be ready to fire. In effect, this would have a constant curtain of fire bearing down on the advancing foe, mitigating the slow reload rate. Of course, a tactic like this required extensive drilling.

Erich watched the men amble about and attempt to fire by rank. It was underwhelming. If they had been at Nuln, their sergeants would have chewed the men out for acting like a bunch of cattle loving Averlanders. Littorio was content with patiently telling the men that they would have to shoot faster next time. His gentleness had always bothered Erich. The man was a good shot, and liked to build things rather than taking them down. But now, after the death of Rodrigo, his slow, staccato manner of speaking and gentle remonstrations was somewhat of a balm. Regardless, it was clear that the men would need time to get used to it. By the end of the day, they expended the shot that had been given to them. They would need to drill until they depleted it in an hour while firing in volleys.

Luigi meanwhile was still drilling his men. Once or twice between the pause in shots, Erich faintly heard him tell the peasants that a battlefield was loud and noisy. This did not mean that they would stop drilling. Even now, as the wind carried away the last of the blackpowder smoke, they still smartly snapped to attention, raised their pikes on Luigi's commands, and lowered them when required. Their spacing was impeccable. Two months had gone by since they had been drilling, and now instead of the rag-tag peasant rabble that had tried to take the town from him, they resembled a fighting unit. Once more of the guns were made, Erich would see to it that they learned how to use handguns as well. Unlike his mercenaries who were biased against the weapon, the peasantry had no such preconceived notions. He was going to make them into a force that would do an Elector Count proud.

* * *

Caledra Dawnbreeze slowly inserted the newly made key into the locked chest. It's skull shaped end glimmered in her hand, One of the dwarf blacksmiths had charged her an exorbitant amount of gold for a skeleton key. They were busy now, making armour for the soldiers of Alterac that Erich was drilling. If someone had told her a year ago that she would be an Officer in the Alliance, she would have scoffed at it. Now, not only was she a ranking Captain that would always receive a salute from the Alliance forces – both human and night elven – in Strahnbrad, she was also desecrating a dead man's private chest.

In a way, it was all melrick's fault. The human – whatever else he may be – was not inclined to logistics at all. His figures were a mess, and half the time Caledra had to spend time sorting out the bevy of figures he had jotted down in the official Alliance ledgers. Half of them were wrong or made up, and the rest that was legible mentioned private papers that were doubtless in his chest. She had tried looking everywhere for them, and only the chest remained. The human had brought it upon himself. If he had not been so shoddy with his figures in the first place, Caledra would not have to go through his private belongings

As it was, the skeleton key turned, and the locks that guarded the chest fell apart. She heaved it open and looked inside. Caledra had dreaded finding things in there that might make the memory of the man become more vivid. People kept their most treasured trinkets in chests like these. She had expected small odds and ends. Perhaps a handkerchief from a lover, a mother's letter or a family photo. They made her uncomfortable. Caledra simply had not lost contact with her family when she had to flee Quel'thalas, she had also lost innumerable little things that had bound them to her. It would feel like an dissection the being that had been a living and breathing creature with dreams and thoughts of it's own.

Instead she found it nearly empty. Apart from a few extra sets of clothes and a clean uniform, the rest of the chest was almost empty. A large number of letters were the only things that caught her attention. Caledra picked one at the top of the pile. The date was the day before Melrick had been assassinated. She began to read the letter.

 _Daily report on the mercenaries_

 _The commander and his lieutenants continue to drill the Alterac men. Already their discipline far exceeds those of the Kingdom's militia. My sources tell me that the men being trained march in lock step with nearly perfect precision. The 7th Legion would be hard pressed to match up with them on the parade ground. No information on how the mercenaries train the men to utilise their foreign fighting methods._

 _Erich Von Peiper is dangerously close to becoming a fifth column in furthering the interests of Stormwind. Even though he has not done anything after assaulting a uniformed member of the Alliance, word of it has spread throught Strahnbrad. Our men now receive hostile glares from the people dwelling in the town, while the Mercenaries' stock has gone up. Situation will warrant further reports._

 _Agent Melrick_

This was something unexpected. She picked up another letter and began to read it. It was dated on the morning after the ogres attacked Strahnbrad.

 _Daily report on the mercenaries_

 _The mercenaries have destroyed an Ogre Assault on the town of Strahnbrad. Was not present for the assault, so unable to provide details of their tactics. Will have to ask Alliance forces that participated in the battle. Erich Von Peiper is battling for his life. In case of his demise, I am to convince Captain Dawnbreeze to keep them in shape for spearheading any Alliance assault. They will not be a threat to larger operations without their leadership in the form of Von Peiper. Will send my reports in bulk when the weather clears. Druid Moonclaw will courier as usual._

 _Agent Melrick._

Caledra kept the paper on the table and picked up a letter. It was dated ten days after the previous one.

 _Daily report on the mercenaries_

 _Erich Von Peiper has ordered me to begin the process of rebuilding the town of Strahnbrad. I am to co-ordinate with one of his Sergeants to make sure that the town is habitable for the influx of the smallfolk of Alterac. I will try to delay it as long as possible, and make sure that the militia being trained by the mercenaries is badly equipped. With any luck, Strahnbrad will be ripe for the taking by Alliance forces when the snows melt._

 _Agent Melrick_

 _PS: I will also be sending the real amount of work done and money spent in postscripts like these on a weekly basis. It should help you estimate the habitability of the town and it's defensiveness._

Caledra realised what this meant. Lieutenant Melrick's tendency to stay at the rear of Garrick's column. His inability to engage, and the lackluster job he had been doing while rebuilding the town. He was not an officer dealing with logistics as all. He was an SI:7 agent. The shadowy organisation led by Edwin Van Cleef's prodigy, Matthias Shaw had been keeping an eye on Erich with Melrick. She could not understand why he would be followed. All she knew was that Erich was being shadowed by the Alliance ever since the battle of Pyrewood. He needed to know this. She took the all the letters and put them in her backpack. Then she left the Town hall to find him.

By the time she reached the training field, the sun was starting to set. Hundreds of men milled around the place, sparring with each other or moving in formation. She noticed that hundreds of the men marched with long sticks held upright in both hands, trying to make sure that they did not hit each other while they ran. This seemed simple enough. She wondered if it was even possible that this comical march would actually help them fight. Time would doubtless tell.

Erich was standing with his mercenaries, shouting as his men. Every time he shouted a fusillade of shot rang outward away from the field. The noise dwarfed everything around the men. It was only broken by the sound of Erich shouting again and being answered by another sequence of guns firing together. Their faces were covered with the soot of gunpowder, and despite all the noise and the smell, the mercenaries were smiling and grinning.

"Alright, lads. Now we are getting it together. Now off you go. You have to be here tomorrow morning. No man ever perfected anything without practicing." Erich said to his assembled men, standing or kneeling with their weapons. Their grins promptly dampened. "Now, place the guns back in the boxes and trot along, and no mixing powder in your drinks. These things are costing someone a pretty penny."

They began to file off, moving back to the tavern, dropping their muskets in the boxes. The old man, Littorio moved off to count them all. Erich meanwhile twirled his pistol about his finger and nodded to himself. He seemed very pleased with himself, and hummed a tune brokenly.

"Captain Erich? Am I interrupting you?" Caledra spoke.

He turned to look at her and holstered his pistol. "Oh, no. Not at all. I was simply admiring the training field today. Its a good thing it did not snow since morning. If the ground got slippery I would not know what to do." He cracked his knuckles and looked at her. "May I help you with anything?"

"Yes, there is something I want you to see captain. It is regarding the late Lieutenant Melrick." She answered.

"Well, what about him? Can't you tell me here?"

"No, I would rather you see it in the town hall."

Erich looked around him and shrugged his shoulders. "Lead the way, Captain." He replied.

The walk back to the town hall was slower. Mostly because the mercenaries and the people of Alterac were returning to their homes. Covered as she was in warm clothes, Caledra could not feel much of the cold on her body. Her face had gotten used to the cold by now, and in a month's time it would finally start getting warmer. When the snows melted, they would march forth into Lordaeron, or what remained of it. She had never needed clothes like this in Stormwind. The sea and the warmer climates down south both worked together to ensure that the only snow stormwind received was magicked in by mages during Winter's Veil. Her former co-workers in the Petitioner's Hall would be hard pressed if they were in Alterac.

By the time they finally got to the town hall, Erich's face was turning red. It was clear that he was not too used to the snow either. Quel'Thalas had always been pleasantly warm even during the winter. The might of the Quel'Dorei mages had kept the bite of winter away until the kingdom had fallen. Maybe Talaena would know if it snowed in Quel'Thalas. She would ask her niece when she next got the chance.

Erich was busy dragging a log to the fireplace and kicking it to make sure it began to catch fire. He stood with his hands outstretched taking in the heat. Caledra noticed that he had kept his gloves on his belt, like Farstriders often did while around a campfire. Nocking and loosing arrows was painful if extended over a long period of time.

"So, Captain Dawnbreeze, what about the good lieutenant did you want to talk to me about?" Erich said, as he dragged out a pair of chairs for the both of them. He sat down and scratched his chin. She noticed a stubble growing on his face.

"Erich, when was the last time you shaved?" She asked him.

"Oh, I have been shaving on days it snows in the morning. Helps me keep track of the weather. So, three days." He said, still scratching.

"I wish you wouldn't do that. You look much better without your beard." She replied. His scratching was getting irritating.

"Ah, I will keep that in mind, Captain. Now, I am assuming you brought me here for more pressing matters than my beard, scraggly as it might be. Shall we get to it then?"

"Why are you so hostile to anyone who might make conversation with you Erich? It was just a suggestion."

"I apologise, Captain. A life of a mercenary always means that someone is trying to make you do more for less. Having a sarcastic demeanour became my go to style for defending myself and my interests until it comes naturally. I do apologise for my tartness. I will try to be more pleasant around you in the future." Erich smiled at her. "Now, you said there was something about Melrick that I needed to see."

She put the first letter on the table. Erich picked it up and began to read it. Meanwhile Caledra began organising the letters in a chronological order as fast as she could. Erich was devouring each one with a quick pace, with his frown growing more pronounced as he kept reading. After an hour, he put the letters down and looked at her. He took a deep breath and said, "So, Melrick was spying on me?"

"Yes."

"Well he really did not do a good job. Most of it seems to be filled with baseless speculation about what I might do. He could not even write a proper report of the two battles that happened around him. I would not be accepting this report if I were his superior." Erich snorted. "All he saw was the men running around and thought that I was going to challenge large sprawling kingdoms with it."

"So, you are not angry?"

"Of course not. If you don't send people to keep an eye on mercenaries they tend to run riot. I thought that was why you were here, Captain. Which is why I was always communicating with you regarding what I wanted and why I was doing what I was doing." He clapped his hand to his forehead. "Why would someone send a person of lesser rank to liaise with me?"

Caledra stopped him. "I am you liason, captain."

"Then why did your superiors bother to send Melrick? Did you know about this?"

"No! I was told that a strange band of humans had appeared outside Southshore and crushed the Forsaken present there. All I was told to do was establish communications with you and act as an interpreter if need be." Caledra told him.

Erich kept scratching his beard. The sound grated on her ears. She prayed to the light that it would snow tomorrow, just so the human would get rid of his ridiculous beard. "So, what does this mean?"

"This means that SI:7 was keeping an eye on you for being a potential foe of the Alliance."

"And they don't even know that the leaders of the Horde want me dead. This is going to be problem."

"Why?"

"Because the amnesty I offered your niece is conditional, and rather unofficial." Erich too cracked his knuckles once more before saying. "I think it is time we made it official. Talaena has a nice neutral handwriting. Do you think she can copy Melrick's style of writing?"

Caledra smiled. She realised what the human was doing. "I will go ask her." she said, and was gone.

* * *

 _ **A/N Well, nothing much happened in this chapter, so I am sorry for that fellas. However, this allows me to set up plot points that can be used in the future during bigger battles. Also, Serra has been on the ship for quite a while. She will be finally landing in the Howling fjord soon. I look forward to writing everyone's overpowered and snooty high elf mage again.**_

 _ **Good Concept, thanks.**_

 _ **Machcia, sounds a little grimdark tbh. And why would Erich allow his men to damage someone who seems to being making equipment for him? There are plenty of women in Strahnbrad already.**_

 _ **Prince Sheogorath, any particular reason? Is it badly written? And he is ordering handguns. I would have used the term musket, but they aren't mentioned in the lore. Just firelocks, rifles and other stuff.**_

 _ **Guest, In the old world scattered cults of Khaine exist, who worship him and ritually murder people. For humans, Khaine is the brother of Morr. This is not 40k**_

 _ **Darknessfalls123, yes, if the mercenaries go through andorhal, they will have to be very cautious, otherwise they would be overwhelmed. I disagree about Sylvanas using ad hoc forces to invade Gilneas. She used much of her standing armies to do that and has lost a lot. That doesn't mean she doesn't have aces up her sleeve.**_

 _ **SITH, thank you. I hope you enjoy reading this. It takes a lot of time to write each chapter like this. Sometimes minor slip ups happen. I have found that they are becoming rarer as I write more. Maybe by the time I am done with this story and start another one, this problem will be largely curtailed. And yes, I really hate the fact that every old world story in the warhammer section has everyone writing about all the lore characters trying to fix the WHFB setting, and it just feels as terrible as the end times. The old world is an incredible living breathing world. Wish some people wrote an adventure in it instead of trying to deal with Karl Franz' invasion of norsca with the help of Thorgrim Grudgebearer.**_

 _ **Solarblaster, Dragon prince? Maybe. Someone like teclis would banter with them until they started crying. Now Druchii on the other hand won't even need the excuse to go on a murderous rampage**_


	31. Chapter 31

**Plan of Action**

* * *

Talaena exhaled slowly. Another day was drawing to a close. The sky was turning from it's morning hue of blue to pink and orange. The air outside the forge was still cool, and Talaena took a deep breath, savouring the cold and fresh air of the mountains. This place was beyond rustic. Even the most remote hamlet of the Sin'dorei had luxuries that the denizens of Strahnbrad would scarcely dream of in their short lives. While she had heard that the town was far more run down when the mercenaries had set up camp here, it was hard to believe. The town barely had any running water. The house she was living in did not even have the simplest carpet and her mattresses were as hard as the wooden flooring. While she had not visited the tavern since the time since the day of the assassination, it would doubtless be the same – with the added caveat of a horde of humans accompanying all the time.

Humans loved their drink. They drank not for pleasure but to get drunk. She had seen some of the vaunted mercenaries. In their strange foreign tights and large and badly made coats, they loafed about the street when they were not on duty, looking for women to sate their lusts with. Talaena kept her knives close, just to be safe. In this town, she was the most beautiful woman, and if some mercenaries thought that she would be a soft target, she would feed them their members. The threats of that mercenary commander, Erich, be damned.

For all their boorishness, these humans at the least knew how to follow orders without grumbling. It was not possible for her and the gnome to make all the weapons. There was simply too much to do. Instead, the two of them made a dozen of the mechanisms a day. It was a surprisingly elegant work of engineering, something that had attracted the gnome's attention – as well as her own. The small brass devices were to be filled with liquid fire, that did not react with the interiors of the brass casing itself, but ignited powder as fast as a mage and far more reliably. The liquid fire would travel down the length of the mechanism, and enter the base of the barrel, causing a small explosion that would propel the shot forward. Due to the design of the mechanism, it was protected from the worst extremities of the weather.

The job of the humans was to make the rest of the gun. Everything from the stock to the barrel to the sights of the guns was made by the score every day. Each human was given a simple task. He or she would either make the stock, the trigger, the barrel or the sight. Then another person would assemble all these together into a gun, lacking only the firing mechanism. Half a dozen humans were busy making all the percussive caps that would be filled with liquid fire by the dwarfs. They at least were happy with the human. Several times, she heard them say that the 'boy' had a sensible head on his shoulders and a capacity for drink that would make him welcome in the inns and taverns of Ironforge. It would seem that in the land the human was from, they were used to utilising gunpowder on a large scale.

This was in contrast with the humans in the Alliance she had fought with over the years. Human hunters and warriors preferred to use crossbows. Talaena could understand why. The weapons were easy to make and maintain, and ammunition could always be made at a fraction of the cost and labour than those of gunpowder. The only alliance forces that had used guns on a large scale so far had been dwarfs. From what she could recall, the human mentioned that he was from a city called Nuln. She had never heard of a place in the Eastern Kingdoms that had a name like that. Humans, being the short lived and capricious creatures that they were made grand names for the shortest of their settlements. A large city named Nuln seemed almost comical in contrast.

Still, her work was not hard, and Talaena had been spending time with her aunt. The Night Elves treated her with a stony indifference, often talking to her aunt as if Talaena was not present in the room. Sometimes a member of the Alliance would come in to get a paper signed by her. They looked at Talaena with a mixture of hostility and curiosity. While she resembled her aunt, her bright green eyes, with the nascent aura of fel left no doubt as to what she was. She was an enemy, and the fact that she was treated as an important asset made the Alliance members in Strahnbrad far more amusing in her presence.

In contrast, the humans that were living in the actual town treated her quite nicely. They had mostly seen little of elves. The last time the elves had entered Alterac was during the time of the second war. From what she could gather, they had been part of the Alliance army that had destroyed the kingdom of Alterac and exiled their king. Ever since the fall of Lordaeron, the remnants of Alterac had suffered and dwindled. They were the last remnant of a human kingdom that had marched alongside the High Elves in ages past when the Trolls had threatened both Quel'Thalas and the budding human empire of Strom. For the humans this time was a mixture of myths and legends. For the Sin'Dorei, it was one of the many glorious things accomplished by the illustrious Anasterian Sunstrider during his long and prosperous reign.

In a way, the blood elves had come perilously close to ending up like Alterac. Suggesting the idea in the Bazaar would result in a swift visit by the town guard, and the ridicule would last for a century at the least. But here, in the middle of Alterac and at the centre of an Alliance town, Talaena found the similarities to be ominous. The blood elves had also been driven to the edge of extinction. First by the Scourge, and then by Kael'Thas Sunstrider – who desperate to find a way to cure his people of their addiction for magic had gone to outland. He had brought back demons for his people to drain and feast on. Talaena had been one of them. She remembered the thirst of magic. The power of fel was something to be savoured. And she had savoured it. Perhaps that was part of the Prince's plan. He had planned on enslaving the Blood Elves to the Burning Legion, and had tried summon Kil'Jaeden with the dark portal. In his death, he had succeeded in restoring the power of the Sunwell, when the Draenei Prophet Velen had turned it into a font of holy energy.

In contrast to the Blood Elves, the people of Alterac had been abandoned by their masters and friends. For the Horde, Alterac was a place that was easily bypassed and a terrible foothold compared to Lordaeron and Quel'thalas. For the Alliance, they were a shadowy remnant of a time of great that best remembered them as a traitor to their own kind. They had been beset by ogres and remained on the razor's edge, a gentle breeze away from oblivion and worse. Talaena could not forget the experiments done by the Forsaken. To them, the mercenaries – even when they fought under the banner of the Alliance – were what the Horde had been to the beleaguered Blood Elves. For all his threats and bluster, the human had lent them an arm when they needed it the most. The army he was training now had given them something with which to defend their meagre belongings. Some of the smiths working under her often talked about taking back Alterac city from the Ogres and becoming free. In a world where they had been treated as refuse or simply forgotten, someone had told them that they too were worth something.

So it was no wonder that the women of Alterac, ugly and filthy as they were happily gave away their favours and their bodies to their saviours. The mercenaries were all to glad to avail themselves of this easy access to female flesh. Talaena had wondered why it was that the mercenaries were not looting the town or running riot. Now she realised why. They did not need to. They were being greeted as liberators and heroes, and from the notes she had been drafting for her aunt, they were being paid in Alliance gold for it. Sooner or later, the town of Strahnbrad was going to be overrun with crying human bastards with foreign fathers who killed others for gold. It was a disgusting thought. Humans were quick to sell their dignity – or what passed among them.

Even now, among the people who made the shot, a pair of lovers stole glances at each other as they helped each other do their tasks. The man was a mercenary, and the woman a Gilnean. They were both outsiders here in Strahnbrad, and it was no surprise that they had found comfort in each other. What was strange was that the human could at the best haltingly speak common. This only amused the wench even more, and she laughed at his accent and his horrible mangling of words. The golden haired and blue eyed brute simply grinned at her. Unable or unwilling to comprehend if what she said was mockery directed at him or actual well meaning advice.

The saccharine sweetness of their romance reminder Talaena of the first person she had ever fallen in love with. He had been charming, as all High Elves who dwelt in Silvermoon were supposed to be. To the young Talaena, the city dwelling young lover might have been Kael'Thas himself. She had dreamed of starting a life with him and living happily ever after. Of course, he had quickly gotten bored and left, leaving her heartbroken. In the decades since, no lover had fulfilled that hole in her heart, and reluctantly, she had given up on trying to find love. Even now, after she had found her aunt, Talaena felt listless. Finding her family had given her purpose at a time when all she wanted to do was lay down and die. She had walked on two continents, braved a dying world and fought alongside people that she had been brought up to hate, all to find her family. Now that Aunt Caledra was here, she did not know what to do.

Talaena supposed it was fortunate that the human had put her to work making weapons for the Alliance. One of the few things in life she had a natural talent in was Engineering. Most members of the horde took up the more goblin branches of Engineering. There were plenty of goblins in the horde, even before the steamwheedle cartel, and making explosives was practical for a warrior. She had wanted to do more with her tools, and so she had braved the journey through Stranglethorn Vale, fighting Alliance – the wildlife and savage trolls just to reach Booty Bay. There, a Gnome who lived in self imposed exile had taught her how to make reliable - if overly expensive – devices. Wobblesprocket here seemed largely impressed with her work. After seeing her build the mechanisms a few times, he had left her to her own devices. Talaena was absurdly pleased with this development. The fact that a Gnome from Gnomeregan did not find any faults with her devices was a sign of her prowess as an Engineer. She had come a long way from making pulleys with twigs and bowstrings.

Still, the humans were not all that bad. The big brutish mercenary really seemed to love the gilnean, and from her smiles and the soft glances she cast at him when he was not looking Talaena was sure that the feeling was mutual. Love could bloom in the oddest of places. The mercenaries who were armed with halberds were also different. When they would patrol the town, all the humans would behave. In contrast with most of the mercenaries, they wore large harnesses of plate that covered most of their bodies. Their headgear was a mixture of practical helmets and large feathered hats that seemed ostentatious in contrast with their functional and drab gear. As it was a glance at them told Talaena that they were capable of using them in a manner that would make them a dangerous foe to fight.

She had to remind herself, that these mercenaries, drunk and ill disciplined as they were had made short work of the army that Sylvanas Windrunner had gathered to take everything north of the Thandol Span by storm. When Talaena had been returning to Silvermoon after seeing Garrosh Hellscream become the new Warchief, she had seen the army that Sylvanas Windrunner had been gathering to attack Gilneas. She had succeeded of course. The Gilnean banners that the Horde ambassadors had pointed out to the crowds of cheering blood elves were proof of that. That this drunken rabble who were busy pleasuring themselves with wine and women were capable of such a feat was incomprehensible to her. The gathering army had been all but invincible. Yet, the way her Aunt held the human in high regard and defended him even after he had threatened her told Talaena that this must be true. Sylvanas Windrunner had been an incredibly driven person in life, protecting Quel'Thalas after her older sister had given her life to defend it. In death, her drive had not diminished. She became the centre of attention in every place she was in, whether it be inside the dread citadel of the Lich King, or in her throne room. The fact that she had personally asked some of the best assassins in the Horde to eliminate this human meant that he had either slighted her or defeated her. From what Talaena could tell from her life, one was not too different from the other.

And now, she was making weapons for him.

Weapons were not the only thing she had been making for him. For the last fortnight her aunt had been escorting her to his room at night. There, on a table, she had been forging letters for him. Most of it was rather mundane. She was initially just copying the letters of the dead alliance lieutenant that had been slain by the deathstalkers. Talaena had been clever enough to know why he was making her copy the letters. It seemed that he and her aunt were working together on something big. She knew that forging letters and what seemed like military dispatches was a grievous offence that would result in their execution. Still, she was not in too much of a position to argue. Her professional career as a rogue had taught her how to copy someone's handwriting down to the smallest detail.

During the first week she had been copying this Melrick character's letters outright and signing them. Then Erich would compare the two and throw the original letter in the fire before sealing the letter in a fresh envelope. Talaena would finish by writing the date on the letter. It was always dated two to three months ago, approximately around the time the mercenaries had first arrived in Strahnbrad. As he had become more sure of her handwriting, he started for small changes in the later letters. It was a word here and there at first. However, the changes slowly began to add up during and by yesterday, the letter she had been writing was completely made up on the spot by both Erich and her Aunt.

As the sky began to darken and the oranges faded into inkiness, Talaena put on her hooded cloak and began making her way to the tavern. She mingled among the masses of humans who were returning from their training. In contrast with the women and children in the town, there was something in their eyes that disturbed her. A subtle hardness that marked out a warrior from the crowd. While she had read that they had been running laps around the training field, how they had the look of hardened killers about them without fighting was something of a mystery. Several of them chatted amongst themselves regarding inane matters, mostly about how cruel their drillmasters were. It seemed that Erich Von Peiper was held in a formidable regard, while Luigi – his Arthas doppelganger of a Sergeant was the kind and considerate one.

The interior of the tavern was rapidly filling up with the men coming back to unwind from their training. She passed through their ranks like a mana wyrm flying through the ruins of Western silvermoon and began to ascending the stairs. The upper rooms were largely occupied by Erich's underlings. His second-in-command was in the room next to him, and her aunt was in the room opposite to him. Right now she was standing outside Erich's door, tapping her foot impatiently. After a few minutes, the golden haired image of Arthas got out of his room and went downstairs, greeting both Talaena and Caledra.

Her aunt beckoned her over as she entered the room. Steeling herself, Talaena followed her. She had rewritten all of the the letters, and was looking forward to this sordid business being done. Erich was sitting at his table, looking at a large map of the Kingdom of Alterac. Several blocks of wood, some painted orange were at the corners of the map holding the large map in place. There was a tenseness in the human, as if he was preparing for something. She had often done the same. Planning was key in a successful operation.

"Erich, my niece is here." Her aunt's voice broke his concentration. He looked sharply at the two of them, his grey eyes startled for a moment.

"Oh, of course. Please, take a seat, both of you." He indicated the two empty chairs on their side of the table. They promptly sat down.

"Miss Dawnbreeze, I am very impressed with your capacity for duplicity. It is time we ended our little writing lessons." He said, bringing out a fresh piece of parchment and a new quill of of ink, it's tip cut and sharpened. "Now, I want you to write a letter for me."

For the next fifteen minutes, he dictated what he would want to be written and Talaena focused on writing it down in her own handwriting. She would create the forgery in a little while when she was done writing the actual letter. It was to be destined for the fireplace. Erich was nothing if not cautious. Talaena did not doubt that even if Sylvanas were to send a bigger force of crack assassins again, they would meet a brutal death before ever laying their eyes on him. When he was satisfied with the letter, Talaena began the laborious process of mimicking the dead spy's handwriting.

When he was alive, Agent Melrick had written the letters in a quick manner, as she could tell from his handwriting. The pressure on the paper was minimal, and his hands seemed to glide over the paper leaving very little scratches on it. Mimicking that meant that she had to write as fast as he did, while making sure she would occasionally leave out tittles and letters. It was infuriating to copy the handwriting of such an oaf who did not cross his T's half the time. After a while she was done with the letter and handed it over to Erich. It read.

 _Daily Report on the Mercenaries_

 _I am writing you this report with a sense of dread. In the span of a week, the Mercenary leader has raised an army a thousand man strong and ready to fight. The people of Alterac are on the verge of open revolt, and might declare for the Horde in seeking their independence. It is imperative that an Alliance force be sent to garrison the kingdom and defend it from both outside and within. If the horde is to take Alterac, all the gains made by our forces in the months before the winter will be neutralised. Send help as quickly as you can._

 _Agent Melrick_

Erich nodded as he put the letter inside an envelope. A seal – that her aunt told her had been found inside the deathstalker's digestive tract – was pressed on the hot dribble of wax to seal it, and Talaena finally wrote down the date on the the envelope. It did not escape her attention that it was dated on the same day Melrick had been slain. No one could tell if it was a completely fabricated letter. This was undoubtedly a pinnacle of her skills in subtlety as a rogue. Although something sat wrongly with her about the entire affair.

"Erich, if I may ask, why are the letters so provocative?" She asked him.

He looked up from the map he was staring at and said. "What do you mean?"

"Well, Melrick was afraid that you were arming the people of Alterac. Anyone would assume that when you fabricated his letters you would be allaying the fears that he had. Instead you have exaggerated them more. Why is that?"

He stared at her for a moment before he smiled. Not a mocking smile as she assumed that he would make, but a genuine one, something that befit a Paladin of the Argent Dawn than a rough human mercenary that had threatened her aunt. It was a surprisingly tender gesture that she believed he was incapable of making.

"Well, Agent Melrick was right in believing that an army raised in Alterac would be threatening to the Alliance, especially as the people of this land have had a history of siding with the Horde. Caledra has been educating me about the conflict between the two peoples. When she found his letters, I thought that it would be useful to use this distrust to my advantage." He scratched his nose and continued. "Now, when the Alliance hears that the people of Alterac have been armed, they will send an army so as to occupy Alterac in it's entirety. This will have the side effect of reinforcing Alterac from any further attacks from the Forsaken or the Horde in general. With the mountain passes, this bulwark becomes nigh impregnable to any attack from the ground."

"So, you will use the distrust the Alliance has for the people of Alterac to take over this place?"

"Reinforce it. Now, this is where the second part of my plan comes into effect." Erich looked as happy as a young child who had cast his first magical spell.

"Which is?"

He got up and began rolling up the map. "Why don't I show you? Captain Dawnbreeze if you would please help me with the map."

Her aunt began to gather all the pieces of wood and put them securely in a silken pouch. Erich meanwhile was finishing with the map. He tucked the roll of paper under the crook of his arm and blew out the candles.

"Now, come with us if you would please." He said.

Talaena went up to get the door. As the three of them began to walk downstairs, Erich whispered something to her aunt in his language. Caledra nodded. Talaena would have to ask her aunt how it was that she had begun to speak an unknown human language with such fluency.

Her aunt turned to look at her. In Thalassian – a language unknown to everyone else in the room she said, "He says that you are to be freed, on one condition."

Talaena froze. "What condition?"

"A solemn oath never to hurt the Alliance by word or deed."

"Why didn't he make me take the oath in his room then?" After all she had done, arming humans who would soon be fighting for the Alliance, this oath seemed like a little unnecessary. All the same, she was now a step closer to being free of the indentured servitude that he had put her in.

"He needs – we need witnesses." Her aunt replied tersely.

The human who had spoken up for her waited at the bottom of the stairs. He saluted Erich rapidly, who nodded in turn. Some of the less drunk humans in the tavern got up to repeat the gesture but he waved his hand airily. "At ease boys. Important business. Have a drink on me." The cheers that erupted from the tavern was something to behold. Meanwhile his lieutenant spoke a few words to him in their language and he nodded. Turning to look at the two elves he said, "follow me ladies. We have work to do."

They descended down to the cellar where Erich had made his office. The barkeep was too busy filling out mugs to pay them any attention. As Talaena took in the room, she was surprised a variety of people in the Alliance stood inside the room, talking to each other. All of them looked to Erich as he walked over to the table and began rolling open the map. Her aunt followed him helping him keep the map propped open with a heavy lantern and some of the pieces of wood.

There was a pair of Night elves. The female was undoubtedly the Night Elf Sentinel leader, Lady Su'ura Swiftarrow. Her aunt had told her that much. That meant that the male Night elf was the druid called Moonclaw. The pair of them were lovers, and the tender glances they gave each other was proof enough. A middle aged man, wearing the dress of an Alterac general, largely a mixture of chain and plate, with an Orange tabard and armed with a one handed sword saluted sharply.

Once the map had been fully unfurled, Erich clapped his hands. "If I may have your attention please. Captain Dawnbreeze has a few announcements to make."

Her aunt stepped up and produced a satchel. "I was going through the late Lieutenant Melrick's personal effects this morning, trying to find if he had some mementoes that needed to be delivered to his family or loved ones. I found these letters." She took the letter that Talaena had written some time ago. "They are all sealed with his seal, and marked to be sent to an address in the Old Town of Stormwind. It is clear that the poor man was writing his letters to someone he loved. All of us would be extremely grateful if Druid Moonclaw would deliver these letters the next time he makes his flight to Stormwind."

The druid bowed. "It would be an honour to send his personal effects to his loved ones, as unpleasant as it might be to them" His voice was serene. Lady Swiftarrow frowned.

"Thank you Druid Moonclaw." Erich spoke. "Now, onto our next matter. The handguns I have requested have almost been completed on schedule. Master Wobblesprocket tells me that it would not have been possible without the help and expertise of Miss Dawnbreeze her." He pointed at Talaena. "In light of this service, I have decided to let her go free – provided she takes an oath, to never hurt the Alliance in both word and deed."

Lady Swiftarrow spoke. "Captain, would that not be a little rash? She is a horde assassin who did try to kill you. What guarantee do you have that she would not run back to the Horde, the first chance she gets to warn them of our plans?"

Erich nodded. "A good question, Lady Swiftarrow. To which, my response would be that she would have done irreparable harm to my men – and by extension a heavy blow to the alliance, by making shoddy weaponry for us. As Master Wobblesprocket can tell you, she has not done that. Making five hundred handguns is a fair trade for a dead man. Regardlless, her Aunt is still going to guarantee her good conduct."

He turned to Talaena and said, "Captain Dawnbreeze, would you be kind enough to administer the oath to your niece?"

Her aunt walked up and stood in front of her. Standing at attention, she said. "Do you – Talaena Dawnbreeze of Silvermoon, swear solemnly to take up no arms against the Alliance, or harm it by word and deed, with the penalty of eternal shame and damnation in the eyes of the Light?"

"I do."

"Then I, Captain Caledra Dawnbreeze shall be your guarantor. For every crime that you will commit against the Alliance, I shall pay the price." Her face betrayed no emotion as she said that.

" I hope none of you will will pester me about Miss Dawnbreeze's status. As of now, she is a civilian working for the Alliance. Miss Dawnbreeze, congratulations on your status as a person who is not at war with us on an official level." He exhaled and yawned. "Very well. Now that it is over, let us focus on more pressing issues."

Turning to look at the man in the Alterac general's uniform, he said, "I am assuming that your men have elected you as their leader?"

The man nodded and said, "Isiden Perenolde, at your service."

Erich smiled at the man. "Of course. Do I have to call you, your highness?"

The man returned that smile. "I would prefer it that way."

"Very well then, _your highness._ Your men are under my command, _your Highness._ That means you too are under my command _your highness._ If you get tired of me calling me _your Highness,_ let me know _your Highness._ It is quite tiring to punctuate every sentence I direct at you with _your Highness._ " Talaena noticed that every repetition of the word was repeated in a higher pitch than the last. The last time he said _your Highness,_ he sounded like a woman – or a man mimicking a woman's cry. The Arthas Doppelganger smiled at that, and Talaena had to join him.

"No, General Perenolde will do." The man replied, his smile shrinking to nothingness.

"Very well then General. You will be under my command. Let us make that clear. Now, gather around the map everyone." He snapped his fingers and everyone crowded around him.

"The capital of Alterac is an excellent fortress that has the capacity to cut off our supply lines from the Hillsbrad hinterlands. Despite what all of us have accomplished here, we are sitting on a razor's edge. A sharp shove and we will all starve to death with the Forsaken on one side, and a horde of hungry ogres on the other." He put a block on the location of Alterac.

"Now, _General_ Perenolde, when do the snows begin to melt?" He looked at the King of Alterac

"A month from now." The man replied

"It hasn't snowed in weeks."

"It melts when spring begins to turn into summer."

"It will be too late then. The ground is hard and firm now. We are going to attack Alterac city now, and liberate it before spring. It is high time _your highness_ had a throne room."

Isiden looked at at Erich grimly and said, "If only it were that easy. Mug'thol is a cunning foe. He will wait out the winter while we starve, trying to siege the fortress. Then he will come out and feast on our marrows."

Erich looked at him for a while, slowly digesting what he had said. "Has anyone else fought ogres here?"

Lady Swiftarrow raised her hand. "I have, Captain."

"Do you concur with _his highness, General_ Perenolde?"

"I do not know. What I do know is that Ogres, much like orcs are inherently violent. Mug'thol doubtless keeps his position by cajoling his underlings by brute force or threats. If we undermine his authority, he will be forced to fight us out in the open, and away from the walls of Alterac city."

Erich turned his gaze to her. "Have you ever done such a thing before?"

"Yes, in Feralas. Unleash my sentinels, and Mug'thol will either die in the throne room, or will be forced out into the open to fight us on even ground."

Erich thought about it for a bit. "Consider your Sentinels unleashed. Take as many supplies as you need. Ambush and kill every Ogre that you find between here and the walls of Alterac city. Make sure that they can see their bodies. With any luck, they will kill their chief, and come out into the open. Druid Moonclaw, if you would please I want reports on what the sentinels are doing."

Both of them nodded. Whatever doubt Lady Swiftarrow may have had about Talaena or Erich's decisions, she approved of Erich's plan. Druid Moonclaw spoke, "When shall I deliver the letters then Captain?"

"Once we are done liberating Alterac, the weather should become milder. When you fly to Stormwind, tell them everything that has happened here." He replied, his grey eyes looking into the amber of the old Night Elf.

"Tell who?" The druid replied.

Erich smiled. "They will doubtless come to you."

"What about my orders Captain?" Her aunt spoke up.

"Carry on as you were. You are still my Liaison with the rest of the Alliance. I will be glad to have you standing by my side when the battle begins. Civilians are to stay inside the town. Tell the handful of Stormwind soldiers to guard it." He turned to look back at the map.

"What about me?" Talaena asked her.

"You are a civilian. You stay inside the town." He replied, without looking up. His fingers began to trace a route from the town towards the crossroads.

"I thought I was a mercenary." She replied.

"You thought wrong." He said, bringing out a quill and dipping it in ink.

"Then why did you spare me? I want to be with my Aunt." She said angrily.

"You will be, when this war is over, or when your aunt is discharged from her duty. She doesn't seem to mind."

"You promised me my safety and freedom." She retorted.

"I have given it to you. I will ask Lady Swiftarrow and Druid Moonclaw to attest it if you so desire. You have your freedom and safety in Alliance lands. We are in the middle of a war Miss Dawnbreeze, if you may recall." He was drawing small arrows on the map.

"Then I want to join your mercenary band." She said.

He looked up at her, studied her for a moment and then said, "Denied."

Talaena was nonplussed. Had the human denied her? Even after she had all but forsaken her oath to the horde? "Why" was all she could say.

"Because you abetted the murder of my friends and desecrated his remains. I gave you a chance to see if you could be useful beyond being a plaything for my men. You have exceeded our expectations. But joining my mercenary crew is off limits to you. We do not look kindly upon those that have killed our friends, Miss Dawnbreeze. It would be better for the both of us if you did not tag along my men." He said. There was not a hint of anger in his voice, and that in itself was more terrifying.

Talaena Dawnbreeze realised that Erich Von Peiper had not been making idle threats this entire time.

* * *

The padding of many feet on the upper decks destroyed Serra's concentration. The Strawberry flavoured cake she was summoning began to disintegrate before her very eyes. This was the third time since this morning that she had been trying to master this spell, and she was finally seeing signs of success. Dana and Peggy were sitting beside her with rapt attention, watching her weave the arcane magic. Dana with an expression that seemed fairly impressed, while Peggy stared at her with barely concealed envy and awe.

Meditating was good for the mind, but Serra was a scholar. She had resolved to learn the way the peoples of Azeroth wielded magic and then to record it. Her time on the ship ever since the attack of the Old God's watery minions had been a blur of training in the Arcane. It had been difficult, but enjoyable. Nothing made a mage of the White Tower leap to a challenge as the mastery of a completely unique school of magic. The Arcane magic of Azeroth was less about harnessing magic in it's entirety and more about simple mathematics. Elven mages in millenia long past had decoded how magic in Azeroth worked on a fundamental level. There was no winds of Chaos tainting the world. No unpredictability or requirement of raw willpower – something that was essential for magic users on the Old World or Ulthuan. From the lowliest human hedge wizard, to the most mighty Loremaster of Hoeth, willpower and talent were the things that made wizards, or broke them.

Not so much here. Magic in Azeroth revolved around keeping your head cool and doing complex calculations in your head even in the heat of battle. The spells themselves might be somewhat weaker individually than the torrents of magic Serra could summon based on her willpower and raw talent alone, but they were sophisticated. Much more elegant than Serra had given them credit for. Summoning water had taken her a week, but now, she could reliably draw magic from her surroundings to summon water that tasted as if it was drawn from the mountain roots of the Annuli.

Summoning food was harder. She had learned the summoning of bread easily enough. It tasted a little undercooked but was perfectly edible after a few tries. Dana was a master at this. The bread she summoned smelled like it came fresh from the oven. Even the gnome, Peggy could make bread that did not taste like dough. Serra had persevered, and moved on to more difficult spells. Summoning the cake was something of a surprise. She had to mathematically express the essence of a cake, and then summon it into being. The problem of course, was that as the essence of a cake spun into being. The equations and expressions changed. Serra would have to predict the change and keep casting her spell accordingly.

She had finally been somewhat successful, and the cake was materialising in front of her when people aboard the ship began to run towards the decks. It broke her concentration, and the cake began to disintegrate right before the final burst of magic was able to solidify the essence. It crumbled and fell down on a floor in an insubstantial mess that began to evaporate before her very eyes. To add insult to injury, Dana dissolved the cake with a counterspell while saying, "There there, you almost had it this time."

Serra was about to show her who the more powerful mage was of the two when shouts and cheers came down from the deck. From the sound of it, it seemed that half the ship was standing there and cheering at something in the distance. Peggy and Dana scrambled up and left her chambers. Gathering her staff, Serra made to follow them. As she climbed up on the deck, she was not surprised to see it quickly filling up. Most of the people up there were soldiers in armour who shook their mailed and plated fists in the air or bashed their blades on their shields. A few sailors slipped expertly through the crowds, pulling the sails and manipulating the rigging. Serra dragged herself up through the press of bodies and walked up to the poopdeck. The captain smartly saluted her.

"What is the commotion all about captain?"

"We have sighted land. Those cliffs over there in the distance are part of the Howling Fjord. We will be sailing tomorrow." She replied smartly. There was a sense of relief in the sailor's voice. They were heading to a safe port at last. Serra could relate. There was very little that could compare to the harbour of Lothern when the patrolling ships returned to it's safe bosom.

The rest of the day passed swiftly. Serra allowed herself to partake in her celebrations. Summoning food and water was one thing, but tonight she could celebrate. Most of the soldiers aboard the ship offered her a drink. They had seen what she had done to the attack of the Old God's minions. The fact that a mighty adventurer had saved their lives was not forgotten by them. A sandy haired youth with peach fuzz for facial hair began shouting the name, Serra Serpentslayer. While it had too many syllables for her taste, the name seemed popular.

When morning came, and the ship began navigating the narrow waterways of the Fjords, Serra was being referred to as Madame Serpentslayer by the officers. Serra would not have admitted it to herself, but she was beginning to love the name. The humans of the Old World were spiteful creatures who cowered or lusted at the sight of elves despite all that the Asur had done for them. The humans of Azeroth on the other hand treated her just as well. None of them even called her a halfbreed. For that at least Serra was glad.

As it was, when the ship touched the quay at Valgarde, Serra and her companions were the first ones who were off the ship. The town – much like human towns she had seen in her life – was crowded and filthy. Hundreds of men ran around the docks unloading equipment, horses and supplies from the ship. Dana led Serra and Peggy away from the crowds of dockworkers that surrounded the ships.

She led them towards a big building that seemed to have a stream of humans entering and leaving it all the time. Serra thought it was a registration office but as she got closer, the flushed face of the humans exiting the building told her what it was. It was the local Inn.

The interior of the inn was crowded, and the three of them managed to find a seat in the corner. Serra took in the surroundings. In contrast with Pyrewood, this place seemed far better maintained. The walls were smoky and covered with soot, and there was a fine toothsome smell that reminded her that someone was roasting an animal in the kitchen. Even as she thought about it, her stomach grumbled. Fortunately for her, Dana had left to order something. Presently the human returned with three mugs of drink. Serra took a sip. It was surprisingly sweet.

"Honey." she said, after the second sip and letting it rest on her tongue

Dana nodded. "None other than the finest honey. It comes from the farmsteads to the north." She took a deep gulp from her drink and said, "I have been waiting to drink it for a long time." Her cheeks flushed red from the drink.

Serra began conjuring up her own bread. Dana and Peggy began to do the same likewise. It seemed like they would have to wait a while for any food to arrive. Afterwards, Dana procured a pot of fresh butter, and the three of them broke their fasts on freshly conjured bread, butter and honey sweetened mead. After weeks of sailing and eating rations and rum, Serra felt that it was fare fit enough for the table of Finubar.

After finishing, they began laying out their plans. At first light tomorrow, the three of them would set out on horses to ride to Wyrmrest Temple. When their quest there was finished, Dana would escort Serra and Peggy to Dalaran. She left to arrange horses from the stables. Serra and Peggy meanwhile rented a room in the dormitory and began to lay their things about. Serra was satisfied with the room. The bed was comfortable and the pillow was more than a lump of straw that Erich had graciously provided to her in Pyrewood village.

She was about to fall asleep when Peggy said, "Why do you want to go to Dalaran?"

Serra replied, "Because I want to learn magic."

"You already know magic. More magic than I ever will." Peggy said.

"There is always more to learn, gnome. Besides, A city for mages that flies in the air is something worth seeing, don't you think?"

"You aren't afraid at all?" She said.

"Why should I be?"

"They are some of the most powerful mages to walk Azeroth, Serra. And the Draenei are nothing to be scoffed at. They tower over the elves in their mastery of the Arcane from what I hear. Will you not be a little out of your depth?" The gnome said.

"On the contrary, I would relish it. I have been unchallenged on Azeroth for far too long. Learning from the mages who can send an entire city flying is a chance I cannot miss." Serra declared.

"Can I come with you? I was always a bit too afraid to visit Dalaran, but if I am with you, I will feel a little less scared." She replied. Her childlike physique and quirky voice made her seem extremely precocious. Serra could not find it in her heart to tell her stay away. She just nodded.

The gnome ran to her and hugged her briefly before jumping on to her bed and pulling the cover. In all her long life as a mage, no one had showed Serra the same peculiar mix of envy and affection. She had heard that it was something younger siblings showed to their older brothers and sisters. It was a feeling Serra had often read about and wondered how it would feel in the flesh. Someone who would be intimidated by your very presence and try to live up to your deeds. Now she found that it was quite charming.

As she listened to the gnome snore softly, Serra knew she had to do something before visiting Dalaran. The flame of Asuryan burned within her, driving her onward. Once the menace at Wyrmrest Keep had been defeated, she would journey to Ulduar, and there find the destiny that Asuryan had marked her for.

Everything else could wait.

* * *

 ** _Machcia, The mercenaries are drinking and whoring away the winter in Strahnbrad, and getting paid for it. For now, there should be little reason to complain. When the severity of the situation hits the rank and file, they will not be so tractable._**

 ** _Prince Sheogorath, Well it is my first time writing a story like this, so I can understand what you mean by having the arguments be a little hollow. When I am done with the entire story, I will hopefully have learned a few things so that I write more stuff in a less Anime way, as you so succinctly put it. And Thimble was interested in the firing mechanism, not the gun itself._**

 ** _Solarblaster, Don't tell anyone else_**

 ** _Ksgrip, glad you are liking the story. Erich's alienating behaviour will be explained later. I have planned on it. Expect a cameo appearance from the best goddess._**

 ** _SITH, thank you for understanding this. People tend to forget that they are mercenaries who have fought in the old world against beastmen, Norscans and Orcs. None of them are far too gentle with any prisoners they take. To them, Rodrigo's death is macabre, but nothing out of the ordinary. Once you have seen the remains of a norscan sacrifice or a beastman raided town, a mutiliated corpse does not seem so jarring.  
Regarding the matter of the horde. Erich's forces caught Sylvanas at the right time. Southshore was saved, and what remained of the Forsaken forces was annihilated at Tarren mill. This meant that any communications Sylvanas had on this side of the Alterac mountains was all but severed. Next, the plan made by General Garrick was a logical one. Taking pyrewood meant that any Forsaken forces in Gilneas would be cut off from The main forsaken kingdom in Tirisfal glades. The remaining soldiers from Garrick's march northwards made their way back to a defensive location that Erich had managed to put up. They basically grind out Sylvanas' invading army in a set piece battles where they have the advantage of Artillery and defensive emplacements and end up killing some of her Val'kyr. This freaks the Banshee Queen out and she orders a general retreat. The lives of the Forsaken and irreplacable. The lives of her Val'Kyr are not. Ever since then, the Alliance has been consolidating it's gains in the chaos. If Sylvanas is going to attack again, her navy will not serve her any good, and she will find the Alliance front to be well fortified. The fact that a bunch of mercenaries using superior tactics to annihilate a bigger army that fights in a zerg rush adds a bit of the cherry on top of the cake. Expect a chapter where you see the forces of Alterac fight side by side with the wider alliance.  
_**


	32. Chapter 32

**Liberation**

* * *

The dwarfs had forged a new suit of armour for him. To say that Erich was curt and thankless would have been an error. He had been taught the proper manner of etiquette of thanking dwarfs during his education of course. No noble family of the empire, how humble their worth and station might be would dare to cause an insult to the dwarfs. To the Sigmarites, dwarfs were the truest allies of Mankind, and to aid and trust dwarfs was their creed. The dwarfs thought likewise in kind. To the grumbling members of the Elder race, humans were shoddy and unreliable allies at best. Sigmarites were 'not bad for an umgi' as they told with great forbearance that a race utterly dedicated to the most asinine of Oaths could have. Even in the great cities of the empire like Nuln, dwarfs stayed in closeted ghettoes, rarely emerging other than to run their shops, berate the few humans who they honoured by taking as apprentices and complain about how watery human ale was. Likewise, the courtesies granted to the dwarfs in any official capacity were overly long and elaborate to the point of tedium. Any mistake made would result in grudges and a throng of angry dwarfs descending from the mountains to set fire to imperial fortresses and fortifications – as the Elector Count of Ostermark had learned the hard way.

These dwarfs though, were friendly and pleasant. Now that their time making and manufacturing was drawing to a close, Erich had noticed them dawdling about in the tavern more frequently. One night, he and Hans, bored of drinking had joined them. They had been surprisingly good companions, telling jokes and laughing at each other. Surliness was something that seemed foreign to them. Every preconceived notion that Erich had about dwarfs had been shattered that night. They were from a city of Dwarfs in the south, they said. It was named Ironforge, and the seat of their Former King Magni Bronzebeard. After his death, the dwarf clans had united to lead their people by forming the Council of The Three Hammers. As a token of their support to the Alliance, both of them had been dispatched north to aid any forces that required the requirements of blacksmiths. What endeared them to Erich was their approval of him drilling both his men, and the yeomanry of Alterac in gunpowder.

One of them said, "Och, ye did good lad. Gunpowder is the way of the future. Crossbows really aren't gonna cut it with the ogres."

Erich grinned. The rum was getting to his head. "You approve of humans using guns?"

"Ach, that we do laddie. Now tell me, what would the point o' gunpowder be if no one used it for blowing stuff up? Fireworks get borin'. Shooting Orcs never does." He replied. "That's a nice bit of tactics there with everyone taking turns to fire. Spreads the shot out, so yer always firing. A clever human eh?" He grinned.

Hans laughed at that. Behind his golden beard, his face was as red as an apple. "You hear that Captain? The dwarf said that you are clever. You think Phillip will forgive you now for being a filthy heretic?" He had been learning common from Caledra, and Erich had to admit, he had never thought the grizzled Sergeant of the Halberds as an academic type. The stay in Strahnbrad had revealed facets of his men that Erich had thought were not even there.

The other dwarf inerjected. "Och, lad. Ye have a splendid beard and moustache on yer face. Remind me to keep ye away from me sister, otherwise she will run off with ye." The pair of dwarfs then burst out laughing. Hans joined in the laughter. His sideburns and handlebar moustache quivering as he filled all three of their cups with a drink

Erich meanwhile wondered what kind of dwarfs they were. To a dwarf, a female of their family or clan was as precious as gold and hoarded away. Apart from a few priestesses of Valaya, the Dwarf goddess of Hearth and Home, Erich had never seen any female dwarfs. Even the most precariously placed Karaks kept their women locked away in their safest vaults along with the gold. Even making the insinuation the dwarf made about his sister would be enough for him to take the Slayer's Oath out of shame.

As time went on, Erich decided to outfit each one of his surviving Sergeants with a suit of dwarf armour. It was easier said than done. For some reasons, the dwarfs wanted to give all of them massive pauldrons. Erich could not understand why. All they would do was put a lot more weight on their shoulders and make it harder to look sideways. Helmets were also rejected. They had their hats, and it was enough. If they were not going to look fabulous on the battlefield, they might as well not fight at all.

Now, looking at his armour, Erich realised how perfect it was. It covered more of his body, ranging from his neck to his groin. The dwarfs had even fashioned a metal codpiece for him to wear over his leather one. At the same time, the inner arms were relatively free of metal, leaving enough space to show the full splendour of his clothes. Erich could not help himself but dress himself in his armour.

The chest piece went over his head first. No matter how strange the dwarfs were, their craftsmanship was unrivalled. Erich did not even bother to fasten it in place. The entire piece went down to cover his thighs, leaving everything around his knee and below exposed. The steel gauntlets went on both his hands. He flexed his fingers, and the thing responded perfectly. This was beyond grand. A perfectly fitting armour was something Erich had neglected. His breastplate had been brought at a flea market and was ill fitting. The fact that it had been made by dwarfs and lacked the ridiculous pauldrons had made it all the better. Erich's hand quivered as he put his hat gently over his head. He felt giddy – like a child who had been given a shiny new toy. And then at the centre of his chest he saw something that made him swoon.

In the centre of the breastplate, etched in skilled hands that mortal man could never match was a perfect replica of his standard. The Symbol of Solland's sun with a small miniature spear, no longer than his index finger angled through the centre. This was dwarf handiwork it it's finest, and it took Erich's breath away. He seemed to stand tall and proud in his armour and tried to keep a stern face, but kept breaking into a grin.

He almost didn't notice his door open and Caledra stepping in. "Erich" she began "Druid Moonclaw has – I" She stopped and looked at him.

"How do I look" Erich gushed.

"Good, you look good." She replied eyeing him.

"Help me fasten the straps will you? These gauntlets really weren't made for finesse." He said, turning back to face the mirror.

Caledra approached him and slowly began to tie the knots. Erich realised that the two of them had never been this close before. Once or twice, her fingers touched the nape of his neck as she was finishing up with the straps. Each touch sent a spark of lightning through his body. It was all he could to do stop trembling. No one had touched him this tenderly since...

"All done" She said, moving away at a respectable distance. For a moment, Erich was irrationally angry, then a wave of relief washed over him.

He turned and looked at her saying, "Well? How do I look?" He swivelled around the balls of his feet.

"Like I said, it fits you well."

Erich smiled. "It does doesn't it? It was made by the two dwarfs, and best of all, I got it for free!"

"How did that work out?" She asked him.

"We made a bet that Hans and I could outlast them in a drinking contest. If they won, I would give them my month's earnings. If we did, we would get free suits of armour. I think you can guess what happened next."

Caledra put her head in a hand and said, "I see."

"So, why are you here then?" Erich finally managed to ask her.

"Druid Moonclaw has returned. The sentinels are falling back to the watchtower. It seems that the Ogres are on the march." She replied. Erich noticed that she had her bow slung on her back and a quiver of arrows on her hips.

He wrenched his eyes away from her hips as she said, "It seems your plan worked."

"No." He blurted out without thinking.

Caledra arched one of her delicate eyebrows. He had never noticed that they were so long that they extended past the golden torrent that was her hair. "What do you mean? The ogres are on the move."

"I mean, it was lady Swiftarrow's plan, not mine. I was content with besieging the town." He replied as swiftly as he could. "Could you wake up my Sergeants please Captain Dawnbreeze? I need to get used to moving in this armour." Erich replied curtly.

As she left Erich grabbed a glass of rum and emptied it. That old breastplate had been part of who he had been before. Dressing up in new armour had ironically enough exposed him for a single moment, and now he was afraid that everything was going to unravel. The drink spread throughout his body, steadying his nerves.

Yes, Captain Dawnbreeze was more than attractive, and part of his brain wanted nothing more than to have her bouncing on top of him wearing no clothes and screaming his name as the two of them made love, but it was a juvenile fantasy. He had threatened to kill her and do worse to her niece. There was no coming back from that. No, it would be better if he spent his money, brought a whore to his bed and had his fun with her until the idea faded from his mind.

Besides, Erich Von Peiper worshipped Myrmidia over all others. He had a war to fight, and his greatest weapon was the head on his shoulders. Any armour or blade, no matter how elegant or dwarf forged would not compare. Now, he had a battle to fight and a Kingdom to reforge, and his foes were on the move. He poured the second glass of rum into the fireplace. There would be time enough to drink and ponder later.

When he left his room, Caledra stood there along with Luigi, Littorio and Hans. Like Erich, they too wore suits of armour similar to his. The dwarfs had done incredible work. All of them looked pleased with themselves, and grinned at him as he came out. They had every right to do so. Dwarf forged plate was often worth more than entire towns. The fact that they had received them for free only made the armour all the more powerful. Once they got back home, their names would be remembered for their armour if nothing else. Only if Rodrigo were here, he would be grinning with them too.

Erich nodded at them. "Well lads? Time to kill us some ogres." All the three stood at rapt attention and saluted. He returned their salute. They were going into battle. This was the only place in the ranks where Erich needed formality. Formality denoted rank. Rank denoted order. Order denoted discipline, and discipline led to Victory.

Captain Dawnbreeze was an efficient organiser. By the time Erich had finished rousing his men and calling them to arms, The march of a thousand pairs of feet began to sound throughout the town. The army Erich had trained and designed was on the march, and his mercenaries were still half awake.

"Come on lads. The peasants are beating us to the victory march. We will miss all the good ale and the younger women" He said. His men scrambled and formed into their assigned ranks. Each one of his Sergeants took his place with his men. Sven and Rudi stood at the attention in front of the column, with enough space for a man between them. Erich filled up the space. For a moment, the world was calm, no thoughts of elven maidens or strategems of war trampled on Erich's mind. There was only the clear sky with a few eagles flying overhead, and him below. He took a deep breath, feeling at ease with the world. His hand went down to his sword. With a fluid movement, the dwarf forged blade was raised high above his head. The sharp intake of breath from five hundred men filled the atmosphere. And then Erich pointed his blade forward.

The men broke off into a quick march. Rudi began to play a jaunty tune about a man returning returning to his favourite bordello. The men burst into song as they marched. Erich did not need to join him. His singing was horrid. Neither did Sven for that matter. The two of them knew what they could do, and singing was not among them.

"Nice armour sir." He said.

"Yes, I got it for free. Dwarf made too." Erich replied.

"Yes, I saw the dwarf making one for Hans. It had the wolf's head in it's centre." Sven shouted.

"What were you doing there?" Erich shouted back.

"I work with Daisy there sir. She doesn't like it when I drink all the time." He replied.

"Are the two of you still together?" Erich asked.

"Yes sir. Once Alterac is taken, I am going to ask her to marry me, on top of an ogre's corpse if need be." Sven was not capable of making such a joke. As Erich looked at him, he realised that the man meant it. Northerners were not known for making idle jests.

"Myrmidia save me, you really are half Norscan Sven." Erich muttered.

"What did you say Captain?" Sven yelled at him.

"I said, 'Myrmidia bless your marriage Sven, and may Shallya watch over your progeny.'" Erich replied.

Sven nodded and did not say a single word more. Erich could have sworn he saw tears out of the corner of his eyes.

* * *

Caledra saw the entire army of Alterac march out of Strahnbrad. The main road southward was taken up completely by their columns. There was something about them that seemed odd. For a moment she pondered what it was before realising that they were marching in lockstep. It was almost enthralling. In her five hundred years, she had never seen a scene quite like this. Humans were not known for their discipline. War was to be fought with valour and skill at arms. This was the maxim with which the race of man had spread throughout the eastern kingdoms. It was this valour that had defeated the Trolls of Zul'Aman, when aided by the High Elves. It had defeated the Horde, the Burning legion and the Lich King. Humans did not fight in lockstep. That was only for parades. But the men of Alterac were marching to a battle with their feet falling and rising in unison. There was something obscene in it's rhythm, Caledra thought. Perhaps it was the pipers who played the song on their strange instruments. Perhaps it was the fact that there was not a single face in the marching columns that betrayed any emotion. The Army of Alterac marched out of Strahnbrad like an army of gnomish clockwork devices, with only the sounds of their boots striking the snowy roads to accompany them Southwards.

Isiden Perenolde marched at their head. The second war had been many years ago. She had heard of the name then. A nephew of the treacherous Aiden Perenolde, who had fled home and sought refuge in Gilneas. Caledra had paid it no mind at the time. Humans were short lived creatures and instability was their lot. Now here he was, a forgotten man from a forgotten age, who had hidden in a forgotten kingdom, marching as the leader of his own army under the glare of the morning sun. It was a thing of which stories would be told in a hundred years, if they survived that long. No matter how much Erich would drill them, the men of Alterac were still by and large unblooded. They might not like the taste of battle no matter how tough they thought they were.

Perhaps Erich thought so to. He was content marching up the rear. In contrast with the martial tone of the pipes, the flute sounded almost soothing. The way Erich's men marched was anything but. They marched in the same way the men of Alterac did. In lockstep and with their pikes at the ready. Their gunners marched in the centre of the column in a thin line, their handguns at the ready and swords on their hips. This was no group of peasants or green recruits about to meet their first taste of battle. They were hardened soldiers. Humans who had faced down the brunt of an entire forsaken offensive without batting an eyelid, and as they began to approach her, Caledra felt that victory was theirs. The man at the front of the column would ensure it.

She ran and joined Erich's company of men. He simply nodded at her and clenched his jaw. She noticed that he had shaved his beard. "Expecting snow today?" Caledra asked politely.

Erich smiled as he said,"No Captain, I am expecting hail."

The march took them most of the day. Caledra had expected more. When they had marched northwards, they had been fighting against the falling snow and treacherous pathways that were unkown to them. Now, the air was as crisp as clear as could be, and the roads were trod by feet that had known them for a lifetime. As the sun began to set, they arrived at the site of battle. Caledra had seen it marked on the map before. Two small hills, enough to hide a body of men, rose on both sides of the road. Erich's men marched to one of the hills while Isiden marched to the other. The road at it's widest was occupied by the second formation of men. They sat down on the road and yawned. A bird cawed overhead, even as landed and began transforming into the shape of Druid Moonclaw. Frightened whispers burst out from among the halberd wielding men. Erich watched the transformation with affected disinterest. As soon as Moonclaw transformed, he said "The Ogres are going to assault your position within the hour."

"Their numbers?" Erich asked.

"Seventy. There were around a hundred. The sentinels killed a dozen and some of the bigger Ogres seem to have tried a coup against Mug'thol. They failed." Came the druid's reply.

"Casualties among the Sentinels?" He asked next

"None whatsoever. They ambushed them by twos and threes and kept their distance." Moonclaw answered.

"Will Lady Swiftarrow obey any further orders I give her?" Erich said.

"She trusts you to lead us to victory." Came the prompt reply.

For a moment, it seemed to Caledra that Erich blanched as he heard that. He had not been uncomfortable for a moment during the battle of Pyrewood. In fact he had been almost as emotionless as a statue Now he seemed shaken somehow. Then the moment passed. Erich, the man as cold as ice, was in command again. "Have the Sentinels form up behind the ogres in a holding pattern. Once they break, they will try and fall back towards the capital. It is the Sentinels' job to ensure that the ogres do not do so." Erich said. As Elder Moonclaw began to transform into his shape Erich simply added, "good luck, both of you."

In a minute, the druid was airborne, and Erich stood alone. Turning to his men, he said "Alright lads. An hour and we will be shooting ogres. A few ragged cheers went up the line. Most of the men were content to wait silently.

Caledra walked up to him and whispered, "Erich, do you not think that the men of Alterac are too green?" Erich shivered as she said that

"Perhaps." He replied "They will have to start fighting sometime. I would rather it be now when we have an enemy that we know the numbers and disposition of."

"So, what are you planning to do?" She asked him again. He did not seem phased by the green nature of his troops. This sort of confidence boasted of either tactical genius or rank madness. After observing Erich closely for so many months, Caledra was not sure if it was one or the other.

"Its quite simple really. We set up three enveloping fields of fire and gun down the Ogres when they turn around and charge at us." His tone was nonchalant. Vaguely, Caledra remembered the lines he had been drawing on the map of Alterac with his quill. It was clear to her that he had put enough thought into it.

After a while, Talaena heard the thud of hundreds of heavy footsteps on the from up ahead. It seemed that the Ogres were on the march. The ground itself shook as the ogres approached. It seemed like an earthquake was on the march. Any confidence Caledra had in Erich's plan nosedived. A horde of angry ogres. Nothing could stand against it. The human had gone mad sitting in the cold and plotting he was going to lead his men to his deaths.

The sounds of panic from the road told her that the Ogres were charging. Erich tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for the first line to engage. They never did. Screaming in panic, they began to run away from the ogres. Caledra watched the wind stampade run towards the direction of Strahnbrad, despairing. Her worst fear had come to pass. The humans had been unnerved by the sight of ogres, and now they were routing.

"I suppose you were right Captain." Erich's voice chimed in. It had a profound sense of disappointment. A child might use such a voice if it tried to play with a fish that had been stranded on land. "They are green as goose droppings. I suppose they will need a bit of stern talking to."

"What are you going to do now? Your carefully laid plans have been ruined!" Caledra fought to keep her voice calm.

Erich shrugged his arm and made a series of gestures to his men. Almost all at once they got up and began to change their facing, all in silence. In the span of a minute, even as the rumbles kept getting closer caledra saw the entire formation change it's facing to stare down at the the road. She looked to the other side of the road, seeing the command under Isiden Perenolde mimic Erich's men.

He smiled at her and said, "What I was taught to do. Improvise."

Erich did not so much as walk down to the rows of handgunners, as he did swagger down amongst them. He stood at an extremity of the firing line and began to lazily load his pistol. Once he had done that he extended an arm to her with all the gracefulness of a young man asking her for a waltz.

"We could use your bow, Captain."

Any hint of nervousness she had was gone. Now she was curious. She sprinted towards him as quickly as she could. Her time as a ranger had made her receptive enough to commands, and she was curious to see what he would do. Even as she ran to his side, the horde of ogres burst through their firing lines.

Their roaring and bellowing bodies were too bloated to seem sapient. Their dull and dumb faces were grotesque enough without their two heads. She had heard Lady Swiftarrow say that the one headed variety were dumber than the two headed ones. Caledra wondered how dumb their single headed brethren must be. Her time contemplating the intellectual capacity of the ogres came to an abrupt end as Littorio's voice rang out. "Present Arms." At once, the handgunners in the first rank levelled their muskets at the running horde. Some of the ogres stopped to look at them, while others piled on to them. The entire herd was in their sights. Erich was grinning as happily as a boy who had been kissed for the first time. "Fire" The old man said.

The stillness of the twilight shattered in a roar of lead hail. On the other hill, the Alterac peasants were opening fire as well, in disciplined volleys. Even as the din began to die down, Littorio gave the order he had been trained to give. "Second Rank, Fire" He commanded. The volley raked down the hill, hitting the hard flesh of the ogres and burrowing through it with wild abandon. The crossfire was deadly, and a dozen ogres were dead or close enough by the time the three rows had discharged.

Then Erich spoke. "Hans, seal the hole in our lines, Luigi, I want a slow paced march with pikes at the ready. Lets show these gluttons how the men of the old world fight."

Both of them nodded. At a slight flick of Erich's wrist, the mercenaries began to move down in well drilled formation, marching in lockstep. The Ogres tried to charge at them, but any cohesion they might have had had been lost. A few of the big brutish monsters tried to grab on to the mercenaries. For every man they successfully managed to wrangle free from the sea of pikes, an ogre went down to the stabbing spears. Ogres generally did not wear armour, and their thick skins, although tougher than a dwarf was no match for dozens of sharp spearheads that would use the ogres' momentum against them. They bellowed and howled and were silenced, while the mercenaries paid scant heed to the broken bodies of both ogre and human as they began to pin them in position.

The gunners meanwhile fired at a steady pace, aiming at the widest cluster of ogres. Caledra lent her bow to them, aiming at any Ogre who seemed to be lurching dangerously close to the flanks of the formation. Twice she saw ogres go down to her well aimed shafts when she hit them in the eye or the throat. On the other side of the small battlefield, the peasants of Alterac began to move down keeping their lines steady. She understood what was happening, the Ogres would be boxed in and surrounded within the hour.

"Sacred, is it not?" The low grumble of a man next to her startled her. A bald man, powerfully built and not unhandsome to look at stood next to her. At his back was a hammer that was clearly made to be wielded with both hands. This along with a book at his side made him look like a spitting image of a paladin. Yet, he spoke to her in Reikspiel, not common.

"Y-yes." Caledra replied, unsure of this strange man.

"I know what you are thinking. What sort of madman keeps his weakest troops in the centre to bait the enemy in before surrounding them and destroying them. The Captain has a plan. He always has a plan. His faith would allow nothing else." He looked at the herd of ogres grimly.

"What do you mean? Who are you?" The man tugged at the corners of Caledra's memory. She had often seen him seated with Erich, Luigi or some others of his lieutenants but he had never spoken to her before.

The man smiled grimly at that, his brown eyes flickering with the intensity of a man utterly convinced of the truth in what he said. He was either a madman or a priest. She noted that his eyebrows were a lighter shade of brown as well. He replied. "My Name is Brother Aspirant Phillip. I was destined to be a priest, but my faith was found...lacking. Ever since then I have followed Captain Erich on his adventures, hoping to rekindle my faith, by basking in the glory of another's conviction. What does that make me? A failed priest? A man abandoned by his god? Or a man whose faith is still being tested? These are questions I must often ask myself." The man had a way with words that was surprisingly eloquent. It was odd listening to a trained seaker speak about faith with a warhammer at his back and a sacred book at his waist.

Before Caledra could reply, Littorio walked up to her. The old man was as interested in the battle as he was in the war councils, looking like he was about to fall asleep. Right now he looked merely bored with the battle. "Ah Captain. So nice to see you. I believe you have met Brother Phillip here, the spiritual foundation of our little band of brothers." He said in Common.

"I do not think the lady likes me Sergeant Littorio." The man replied in the same language. Caledra had not recalled teaching him any Common.

"Probably because you prattle about faith and Sigmar's fury all the time. Nothing makes a girl as dry as someone talking about religion all day, Brother-Aspirant Phillip." The older man replied.

"So, what do you think it will be this time?" Littorio asked Phillip. The two of them were ignoring Caledra.

"A week's salary says that Ulric's puppies won't be needed in the battle. The ogres have been well and truly caught." The younger man smiled in reply.

The older man rolled his eyes. "Now, that is preposterous. You know Hans is going to go feral if he doesn't hurl himself upon the nearest ogre he can find."

"You know what your problem is Littorio?" The younger man countered. "For a man so old, you have very little faith."

The older man smiled slightly. "You have faith enough for us all, Phillip. Pity it is the wrong one."

Caledra finally managed to interject. "What are you two talking about? The ogres are still fighting hard and fast, and your captain is in the front lines. Why aren't you at his side?"

"If he needed me, he would have told me. Besides, a warhammer doesn't have quite the reach needed to fight with ogres. Anyway, this is a fight for Myrmidia, and a son of Sigmar does not crave glory granted to another god."

"What do you mean you do not worship the same god?"

"The captain worships Myrmidia, the goddess of war and civilisation." Littorio replied, pointing to the still form of Erich, looking down upon the clambering ogres with a statuesque expression of disgust. To Caledra it seemed that he had not moved at all.

Phillip continued, "The frothing Sergeant there worships Ulric, the god of war, winter and wolves." As if in answer to his comment, a piercing cry rang out from the direction of Strahnbrad. It sounded like the howl of a wolf – not merely a human imitating one. There was something _feral_ about the howl that chilled her to her bones. Even the Worgen never howled like that.

"They are nothing alike." Caledra replied to the two men standing right behind her.

"They are the two sides of war, working together as a coherent whole. One is incomplete without the other. Take a look, Captain Dawnbreeze. What you are about to witness might be called a miracle by the faithful of the lands in which we dwell."

By this time the ogres were almost on the verge of breaking through the trap. The fallen bodies of their kind had broken up the cohesion of the pikemen, and an ogre, larger than the others, and armoured in crude plate swung his club with wild abandon, cleaving through dozens of men. They were almost free. There was nothing in front of them but a single company of halberds who stood still on the snowy path blocking their exit. Erich's improvised plan now hung on the razor's edge.

He simply raised his voice above the din of the battle. Caledra noticed that he did not shout. Even in the midst of his cups, the man never shouted. The only time he had screamed was when her niece had offered to join his mercenaries. The result however was as profound as if it had been shouted by Alleria Windrunner herself. Every one on the battlefield turned to look at him, whether they be peasant, mercenary or ogre. There was something so callous about his entire being at that moment that he looked more than simply human. A faint touch of the Light seemed to surround him. Or perhaps it was an illusion made by the rapidly setting sun.

"Middenlanders, who do you worship?" He said. It tore through the entire battlefield.

In response the halberds shouted " _ULRIC."_ His men took up the cry and it began to reverberate throughout the mountains. Even some of the Alterac peasantry mimicked the word as the battle continued. There was a power within that shout. Almost at once, a cold wind blowing from the north tore through the battlefield, Although she was dressed with furs Caledra felt as though she had been submerged into an icy lake with no clothes. Both Phillip and Littorio hugged themselves tighter. It suddenly felt colder than a blizzard, although the sky was as clear as day. A cold wind from the north blew through the valley, howling like a pack of wolves.

The Halberdiers began to march towards the breach in the lines while chanting songs in a language that Caledra did not know. She did not need to know what it meant. The intent was as clear as the snow that slowly began to fall on the battlefield.

As the halberds closed in with the Ogres, they began to run with their weapons. Then suddenly their sergeant shouted, "Middenheim, and the Emperor!" His men yelled in reply and fell upon the ogres with a glee that was disquieting.

The small group of ogres was surrounded and methodically obliterated by the Middenlanders. Their halberds were made to cleave through armour, and they used it to full effect. Within a span of a few minutes the ogres were down to a handful. Only the armoured ogre was capable of resisting. With an almighty roar that reverberated in the mountains, they lay into the entrapped ogre champion with a fury that was terrifying to see. Caledra had seen Orcs kill defenceless elves during the Second War. The butchery that the demon fuelled Horde had wrought upon the sick and wounded were similar to this, but the humans were cutting down the entrapped ogre methodically. With the easy confidence of trained soldiers, they hacked, slashed stabbed with their halberds, keeping out of hand's reach of the beleaguered ogre champion slowly and steadily bringing him down to their level before Hans cut the creature's heads off with swift strokes.

Meanwhile the peasantry of Alterac had been busy. Their fury burned hotter than the mercenaries, for it far more reason to exist. They had been driven away from their homes and to the brink of extinction by the Alliance, and then the ogres. Now the big lumbering creatures who had brought their kingdom were lying in heaps at their feet struggling to get up. The men began stabbing the creatures wildly not caring if they were killing or just maiming the creatures. Some of the ogres began to weep. It was a sound that Caledra knew would haunt her dreams for centuries to come. Something this big and dangerous had no right to sound so innocent. It felt wrong. She sat down and covered her ears, hoping that the sounds would go away.

The noises of the wholesale slaughter continued for the better part of an hour, and the sounds of the ogres slowly began to die away as the mercenaries methodically slaughtered them. There was something so vile in the wanton killing that made her shudder. She had thought that the mercenaries were tough but largely simple folk who were out to earn money. The few rank and file soldiers they she had talked to over the course of the previous months were like humans everywhere else in Azeroth. She had never seen humans methodically killing monsters twice their size without even even flinching.

A man in the midst of the firing line began to play his flute. His long golden hair flowed freely in the whistling cold wind as he played his piece. It was a slow and mournful tune that cut through the receding din of the battle. The halberds slowly began to stop as the last ogres bled out. There was an awful silence on the battlefield, without any cheering or clapping. The pipers from the Alterac lines started playing. Their their mountain pipes played out the same tune played by the mercenary. It seemed to fit perfectly in the crags of the mountains. They had defeated their tormentors and could afford to be triumphant. Songs hailing the king and the kingdom broke out amongst their ranks. It echoed in the valley and was carried north with the wind. It was a warm southern breeze that heralded the end of winter and the promise of spring and rebirth.

Winter had passed, and with it so had the long torment of Alterac.

* * *

 _ **Rylomakin81, Exactly. Being a merc means that Erich has to be crafty. After all in the old world everyone is not the most honest and upright person unlike most people in the Alliance or even the Horde.**_

 _ **Guest, you will like the next part. I promise space goats.**_

 _ **Machcia, you will see. So far Serra has been roaming around with regular adventurers not the people with shiny loot.**_

 _ **deadliestfan, glad you like it.**_

 _ **SITH, the mercenaries just end up stalling Sylvanas' attacks that rolled up the Alliance north of the Thandol Span. That is what they did. I referred to Varian leading an army to help the Night Elves push back the Horde out of Ashenvale which the Alliance accomplished on it's own.**_

 _ **Reality Deviant, duly noted regarding the smallfolks matter. Regarding your second complaint, the mercenaries are currently involved in what would be referred to as Low Level Zones. They don't have gods popping out all the time, and so far the only remarkable trait Serra has shown is her contempt of the Old Gods. You have to understand, from her perspective she thinks that the magic users of Azeroth are weaklings because she has been exposed to weak ones so far. Now she is in Northrend and going towards Wyrmrest Temple during the events of the Deathwing raid. She is on the verge of being exposed to some of the most powerful characters of Azeroth.  
The defining characteristic of warhammer Elves is their stupendous arrogance. When an elf like Serra hears that a human mage is as powerful as her, the natural inclination will be to dismiss it out of hand. After all, humans **_**can't _be that good, not in her worldview.  
Regarding the Mercenaries and Erich, they come from a culture where Faction war sized battles take place every few years. Erich has grown up in the Empire which nearly always has either an undead army raised by the vampires, Beastmen brayherds, Norscan raiders and Orc Waaaghs looking for a fight. Azeroth has far mightier champions than Mallus, but the people of Warhammer Fantasy excel at waging total war on a massive scale.  
And regarding gods, this is taking place during the Cataclysm, at a time where all the Wild Gods are gaining power and the elements are in turmoil. _**


	33. Chapter 33

**The calm before the storm**

* * *

Much to the chagrin of Isiden Perenolde, the victorious forces of Alterac were not the first to march inside their newly liberated capital. Even when the men of Alterac were busy cutting off fingers and heads from the dead ogres for keepsakes, Druid Moonclaw flew into their midst and sent them a message. The surviving ogres that had tried to retreat back to the capital had been taken care of. The route to the Sentinels were even now entering the city and making sure that any ogres that survived would be neutralised. As Erich had assumed, King Perenolde did not like that. He had been the leader of a people in exile, barely managing to survive. Now, after incredible odds he had freed his people - all thanks to Erich and the mercenaries – only to be told that someone else was already inside his city.

Still, there was no arguing from Erich's quarters. The night elven women were stealthy in a way that no human could match up to, and he doubted that those bows they carried were just for show. For all their bravado and cheering the Peasantry of Alterac had performed in a manner that seemed mediocre to him. Half of their forces had run away. Of the half that had stayed and fought, the handgunners were the only forces that had proved to fight effectively, shooting in disciplined volleys instead of trying to act like marksmen with their guns. The pikemen had taken the lion's share of all the casualties. Over fifty of them lay dead or dying on the snow, in contrast to five of Erich's men and no halberdiers. A hundred were injured but would be able to fight in some way in the future. Somehow he doubted they would be able to do much good in the close quarters of the city if it came to fighting.

They stayed for the night camped in the snow. Despite the cold, the mood was incredibly festive. After all, they had done it. Their land was on the verge of being liberated. The ogres were dead, and Perenolde had been fighting in the forefront of the battle, leading his men on with deed and word. Erich knew their type. In a battle, stratagems disappeared once the lines collided. What determined the action of close quarters combat was morale and discipline. Fighting by the side of their king, the men of Alterac would not have a problem with the former. The latter needed to be looked into.

But that was a problem from another night. As his men began to pitch up their tents and burn through their allowance of firewood, Erich thought smugly about how this battle would be remembered in the years to come. The chroniclers of Alterac would conveniently forget that it was their centre that broke and ran. No, it would be a brilliant tactical manoeuvre that was executed at the behest of their great King Isiden Perenolde. The mercenaries would doubtless disappear from the stories. And that suited Erich just fine. There was nothing worse than a mercenary who had a high opinion of himself. They were dogs of war, and dogs were not picky about the fights they fought. He turned over and tried to fall asleep. For a change it was not too long in coming. He must have been exhausted after the battle. The last thing Erich remembered before he drifted off to sleep was that someone had to post guards around the encampment.

As morning came, Erich woke up and began to get dressed. His armour would not need to be cleansed. After all, he had not really fought in the battle. Quickly putting on his clothes and hat, he strode out of his tent, only to realise that the order had largely been unnecessary. Hans was patrolling the camp with a dozen men. The bags under his eyes and his foul mood made it clear that the man had not slept a wink during the last night. Erich ran up beside the man and asked him how the middenlander was doing.

"I feel tired sir. Couldn't catch a wink of sleep last night, so some of the lads rounded up a patrol to do some good." Hans grumbled. His blue eyes were half shut and he yawned as he completed the sentence.

"Get some rest Hans. I will do the patrolling." Erich replied. The man looked like he was ready to collapse as he was.

He nodded in assent and began to stumble back to his tent. His men waved him farewell.

"You lads, with me." Erich said to the halberds.

They patrolled in the pre dawn gloom for about an hour, watching the sky slowly turn from an inky black to a dark violet. By the time the sun was rising over the mountains of Alterac, Erich felt the last of the drowsiness slip away from him. Another day was dawning, and it was full of promise. Some of the tents were dislodging their occupants, who stumbled sleepily across the snow in various states of undress. One Tilean woke up – stark naked – and stepped outside, only to run back in cursing when the wind caressed his privates. For all intents and purposes, his men had not grown too accustomed to sleeping in houses with roofs over their heads. Nothing ruined an army more easily than soft silks and furs. Even the fun loving Voland kept his men jousting between all the wine and whores.

Erich's men had to make do with military rations and peasants with missing teeth, so they weren't as deprived as they would have been back in the homelands of Tilea. Still it never hurt to feel the harshness of camp life. They were mercenaries and it some bouts of hard living made ugly peasant women and tasteless beer feel all the better by comparison. Now they would be all the more welcome. At least one of them had even found his soulmate. Erich chuckled softy at that, eliciting a few puzzled glances from the patrolling halberds and a few yawning onlookers.

Simple Sven, the big Nordlander who held the standard aloft in the thickest hail of arrows and the scrum of deadly pike duels was going to be married to someone he considered a soul mate. This was something folk tales were made of. Faraway princesses and dashing heroes. Of Brave knights rescuing damsels from brutal norscans or falling in love with the perilous fay folk. A bastard son of an innkeeper marrying an orphaned blacksmith's apprentice was not something bards sang of or writers published. Still, it was as real as the chunks of ogres that littered the battlefield.

For unlike Solland which had passed into history and myth, the people of Alterac had lost their independence, their homes and their loved ones in the span of two decades. Now Erich had armed them, and taught them to fight – in a fashion, he would see to the peasants that had fled another time – before unleashing them before their tormentors. The look in their eyes was familiar to Erich. He had seen something similar in the Free Companies of the Empire. Men who had lost nearly everything were the most dangerous foes. Their lives hung by a thread and they would fight to the bitter end out of pure spite. It was something he could empathise with. People could only be pushed so far before they snapped.

The ogre heads on the pikes were proof of that. The ogre chieftain – Perenolde's advisors had determined that it was indeed the brute on account of a crown he wore on his head - was now hanging outside the soon-to-be-crowned king's tent. It would no doubt be preserved as a token of valour of House Perenolde for generations to come. Personally, Erich would have turned it into a drinking mug. After all, for all it's supposed cunning Mug'thol had fallen into his trap. It meant that there was a lot of empty space in that skull.

Now that the battle was over, Erich felt the craving of drink upon him. It was a curious quirk of his. In the midst of anything that had to do with battle, he could stay sober for periods of time that would be impossible for him otherwise. When he was younger, his father had been afraid that young Erich would not killing. He wondered if the old knight would be proud of his son who would forgo drink so that he could better plan mass slaughter. Probably not. He would call Erich unmanly for not striding into battle stark naked with a skin of rum in his hand.

Erich tore his mind away from thoughts such as those. He was his own man now. His father's jibes could only hurt him if he let them. Like it or not, the old man was now either dead or decrepit, either think a sad fate for a knight who had once fought in the Grand Alliance against the forces of Chaos as a Brother under the banner of the Blazing Sun. No, this was Erich Von Peiper's moment. Mercenary, Scum, Saviour.

After the patrols were over, Erich went back to his tent to tally his figures and make sure some enterprising Tilean had not been thinking of making away with his paychest. On the field of battle, Erich trusted his boys completely. They had braved death holding their arms together countless times. Off the battlefield – a Tilean was a Tilean, and coinpurses would be surprisingly light if Erich was not there to keep everything in line.

By the time Erich was finished with his figures, his temples were pounding, and his body ached for a drink. A skin of sweet rum was as good as Myrmidia's blessings at this point. When he exited the tent, he was surprised to see his camp beginning to break up. Men went here and there, packing their tents – pots and pans while extinguishing wooden fires and muttering to each other in small groups. There was a mixture of relief and petulance in their faces. They looked like children who had been caught by the tutor and instead of receiving a thrashing, had been ordered to do their sums ten times in a row.

Luigi strolled up to him while Rudi and Sven began to unpack his tent. The young man had slept well, and looked sharp and handsome in his dwarf forged plate armour. Erich noticed that he had taken to not wearing his hat, letting his long, golden hair hide his ears from the cold and shaving almost daily with a razor. His chiselled, statuesque face and bright green eyes complemented his military bearing with mercenary carelessness. In the bright light of day, Luigi of Pavona looked like a prince. Maybe his father was one, and the poor lad never knew.

"Eh, Capitan. We were just coming to see you." He said.

"What's the matter? Why are we packing up?"

"It's that idiot king. He wants to go back to his capital and sleep in his uncle's bed this night. So he is making us march." Luigi rolled his eyes. The man chafed having to receive orders from people he did not trust.

"The lads had something to eat?" Erich asked in return.

Luigi nodded. "Mostly bread and some of the salted goat meat. Thankfully none of them are too drunk not to march."

"Well, who told you to march?"

"That long eared she-elf captain did. Apparently that fool Perenolde wants us to enter the Capital after him – says we are to be his guests of honour and to be seated at his side. He already sent word to Strahnbrad" The boy's chagrin became clear.

In the years he had been soldiering, Luigi had never gotten so much as a second look from most of the petty nobility of Tilea. Their wives, mistresses and daughters were another matter. To be seated at the table next to a king was something beyond his ken. The thought was so absurd. Luigi – so calm and collected in the heat of battle – panicking because he was going to be the guest of a king was too funny not to laugh at. Of course, Luigi was not so pleased.

"What? This is no laughing matter Fa- Capitan! I don't know what to do? You are a Nobleman from the Empire. Teach me!"

Erich burst out laughing at that. His university education had one glaring flaw. He had never learned how to treat the bewildering variety of Imperial Nobility and Yeomanry in the proper courtier's manner. None of his men knew that of course. He could make something up and the wily Tileans and simple Imperials would nod and smile. After all, he paid them.

His laughter attracted someone else. Littorio had filled his armour rather well. His bald head, kindly old man's face and ramrod straight posture made him look like one of the more decorated generals of the Empire. His father had taught him a maxim. If a general had several scars, it meant that he was a bad bad general. Valour had it's place on the battlefield, but they were won by cunning and thinking men. Behind every Kurt Helborg, there were a dozen generals and captains who planned the campaign, ensured supplies were available and directed artillery during the battles. His time at Nuln had taught him that it had been true. After all, his coursework was written by men who had fought in the Vampire wars, and he was taught by men of Nuln who had directed the artillery during the defence of the Empire which had resulted in the defeat of Archaon the Everchosen .Erich had of course tried to model himself after these taciturn men with mixed results. Now he was turning their theoreticals into practicals in a far away land.

"Nothing. Poor Luigi here is worried sick that he has never been invited to any place higher than the local guard's outpost when he was young. The King of Alterac has invited us to be guests of honour at his coronation and the lad's about to piss his pantaloons." Erich replied while laughing.

"Now, Capitan, I am certain you are being harsh on young Master Luigi here. He came to you in confidence asking for your advice. Making light of his plight is certainly unbecoming of you." There was a genuine sense of reproach in the old man's eyes. Luigi was handsome, young and braved danger as much as the man next to him. It was no wonder that the men liked him. Add to that his intelligence, it meant that Erich had chosen a worthy successor to carry on his torch – or so he hoped.

"Alright Littorio. Why don't you be the lad's nanny and teach him how to behave in front of a king. Hah. Perenolde is dressed in wool and chain mail made with the money of the people that destroyed his kingdom." Erich replied.

Littorio simply nodded. "If that is what you wish, Capitan. Come lad, let us teach you manners that befit a king's table, no matter how filthy or unbecoming that it may seem."

For the next hour and a half, Littorio lectured Luigi on the uptake of how to bow to a king, how to ask for more wine and how to pass the meats at the table while eating nothing. All the while the entirety of the camp was being dismantled around them. Erich could not care less. The old man's knowledge of curtsies was staggering. He had passed by Erich's knowledge within the first quarter of an hour and had rarely stopped since. By the time he was finished, Luigi and Erich were both a little dazed from the amount of information Luigi had unceremoniously dumped on them.

Littorio noticed this. He simply put on his hat and said, "If either one of you are too confused about the minutiae, I would remind you of on of my father's axiom on court life. 'A court is no different from a brothel. Everyone you meet wants to bugger you and charge you for the privilege. Its just that one is lot more expensive.' Good day, gentlemen. I have my men to marshal."

With a slight bow and an even slighter smile, the old man turned to leave. Luigi waved at him and went the opposite way. Erich followed the old man. He did not have to go far. Littorio was packing his tent when Erich walked up to him.

"You look like you need a hand." He said.

"Oh, thank you captain. These old hands are not so good at keeping away the cold. I would much rather be lying down in the tavern with a glass of brandy on the bedside." Littorio smiled at him.

The two of them folded the tent. When the time came to put in in the bag, Littorio's hand spasmed in the cold, dropping it. A collection of odds and ends fell down. One was a small and elegantly crafted violin, while the other was a book Erich picked it up and returned it to him, after quickly glancing at the name. It was titled The Count of Monte Fyrus and written by a Tilean, Alessandro Dumas. The two of them spent the next minute putting everything back in his bag.

"Is the book any good?" Erich asked as Littorio gently dusted it's cover.

"Well, it is certainly popular amongst the citizens of all the Tilean cities. The people of Miragliano will swear that the Villainous Prince in the Story is the Prince of Luccini, while the good people of Remas will swear it captures the Duke of Pavona's villainy down to the most minute detail. After all, it is a story about Vendetta and Love, two things close to every Tilean's heart, no matter what his city or town."

Erich nodded. Tileans loved their vengeance. Duels were fought over almost everything, from a single coin, to the woman would have purchased. It felt very quaint to Erich, who thought it was similar to Bretonnian Jousts, with far bloodier results.

"Ah, fascinating."

"Signor, do you mind if I ask you a question?"

"Not at all, Sergeant."

"I understand the young Elf who is kin to the good dame Dawnbreeze was instrumental in outfitting our men with these handguns. Have you forgotten what she did? Or has your cold pragmatism chosen to forget the butchered corpse of Rodrigo that lay in his bed."

"Can you prove that she killed him?" Erich asked.

"Can you prove that she did not?" Littorio shot back. His dark eyes squinted as he looked at Erich.

"Not conclusively, one way or the other."

"They why let her go free?"

Erich simply smiled. "Tell me Signor Littorio, in this story that you were reading, does the hero take his vendetta against the person that tore him asunder from his love?"

"He spends years in a prison, trying to escape with only the crows of Myrmidia to guide him in his wretched state, along with a mad old Estalian for company. He ruins his foes lives and exposes their crimes to the citizens of the city before bidding farewell to his long lost love."

"And do the Villains only include the man who took her away from him?"

"No, it includes those that betrayed him for doing his duty to his city and his love."

Erich smiled. "And do you not see what I am trying to do? Someone killed Rodrigo, mistaking him for me. This someone has placed a handsome bounty on my rather quite plain head. If I am too harsh with our only lead, the chance at vengeance disappears like the morning dew."

"So you let her go free as bait?"

"No, I set her free on the condition that the life she had built up to then be stripped away from her. She has helped build weapons for the Alliance under her own free will. She will be an outcast amongst her people if they find out. Even if she goes back home, she will hide in the shadows for however long she lives, unable to bear the shame. Just like Rodrigo's girl will have to live with the shame of being born out of wedlock when her father does not return."

"And the person who ordered Rodrigo to be taken away from his family?"

"The book ends with the three words, 'Wait, and Hope.' Rest assured that in our own sweet time and place, this Dark Lady will know why the Old World knows not to let a Tilean die unavenged."

Littorio smiled. It was cold enough to send shivers down Erich's spine.

Any questions he might have asked were stalled when the figure of Captain Dawnbreeze waved at them. She looked radiant in the noonday sun. She walked up to them and said, "Captain, King Perenolde requests your presence at his Coronation, along with those of your sergeants."

Erich simply nodded at her. "I was just helping Littorio pack his tent while discussing literature."

"What kind of literature?" She asked

"Oh, nothing much. Just a story of far away lands and people you don't know. Lead the way, Captain."

As she turned to leave, Erich looked at Littorio. "Can you play that Violin?"

"Yes, I can."

"You are full of surprises Littorio. I never knew that you were of noble blood as well." Erich continued. "After all, the only people that remember which fork to use for cutting pears are the ones who are used to dining in such luxury."

Littorio froze for a moment, before going back to packing his bag. He slung it over his shoulder and said, "Well Capitan, you have me all figured out."

"So, which house of Tilea are you from?" Erich asked him in an offhanded manner.

Littorio turned to look at him."You aren't the only one running away from your inheritance Captain." Then he walked away.

Erich had to hand it to the night elves. They were incredibly adept at their way of warfare. The streets of Alterac were strewn with the corpses of ogres, nearly all of them shot in the eyes or the head. Caledra had claimed that the Night Elves had been fighting in that manner for over ten thousand years. While the number seemed ludicrous to him, Erich had to admit that it just might be true. Those arrows were shot with an accuracy that would have been impossible for even the Huntsmarshal to match.

The smell of burning ogre corpses assaulted his nose. The ramshackle dwellings that the ogres had made were being used as kindling to burn their bloated bodies. Their heads were adorning pikes on the main throughfare. As Erich walked on the road to the Castle that was now in the hands of it's rightful owner, he passed through a forest of ogre heads being picked apart by crows. Alterac now belonged to the humans who had made it, and the invaders were now food for crows. Hans smiled grimly at the dead ogre chieftain's head. It was his kill, and the fact that it stood higher over all others spoke to his prowess.

"You look pleased." Erich said.

"Yes, I will be less than pleased in a week when it rots and begins to smell." Came the grinning Middenlander's reply. "It is pretty amateur work. They haven't even tarred the damn heads."

"Small mercies Hans. This is a pretty town. Doubtless it will look prettier once the damn things begin to rot and get taken off. Kings are petulant like that."

"Franz would have the things burned or ask the Supreme Patriarch to turn it to Gold to keep as a keepsake."

"Yes, Gods preserve Emperor Franz. He would certainly do that. However the people of Alterac probably have bigger things to worry about than some rotting ogre heads. This place looks half as bad as the Border Prince's petty kingdoms."

Caledra interjected once more. "Are you talking about preserving these trophies?"

Erich nodded. "What will the king do with these heads? Make drinking cups for dignitaries?" Littorio chuckled at that.

By this time they had come to the base of the Castle. Even at a glance, Erich could see that it had seen better days. The tiles of the different bastions had come off, and the roof which had doubtless been orange once now was a patchwork of broken down slate that occasionally fell down. To say that the place had a run down appearance would be an understatement. It seemed like it was barely teetering on the edge of complete collapse. Even inside the walls of the castle, Erich could see plumes of smoke rising in the sky. It would seemed that the last of the offensive taint of the Ogres was being cleansed only a short distance away from where the king sat.

Their entry was barred by two peasants who had somehow managed to acquire two suits of full plate armour that hid their faces for him. "Who comes?" The bolder of them asked while desperately trying to avert his eyes from Erich's gaze.

Captain Dawnbreeze said, "The mercenary leaders whose presence the king requested come at his command." Her stiff and formal tone was practised. It would seem that Caledra was used to the stuffiness of court life or at least knew how to take it in stride.

The old man who had first seen Erich walked up to them wearing stately – if a little motheaten – robes dyed in the colour orange. He held a bronze sceptre in his hand and looked at them. "The King wishes to inform his guests that the court is being prepared for his coronation. It would be doing him a great service if you would kindly wait in the antechamber until he sends for you." He said in a loud voice.

Caledra nodded and bowed. Turning to the mercenaries, she said "Gentlemen, if you would please follow me, it would seem the King is otherwise engaged. We must await his pleasure."

They followed her like a pack of obedient children following their nanny as she led them to the Antechamber. The castle was still being cleaned of the filth generated by a decade of ogres living there. Doubtless, Perenolde had been setting men to the task ever since the battle was over. Half a dozen times Erich passed by men whose faces he vaguely remembered on the training field. Two of them dropped the filthy muck they were carrying on seeing him, and all of them smiled and nodded. For some reason being seen and recognized for what he was doing pleased Erich. If nothing else, the people of Alterac would remember him the man who set in motion the Liberation of their Kingdom.

When Erich entered the Antechamber he realised why he had been sent to wait here. The place had been thoroughly cleaned of all the dust and filth that pervaded the city. The floor shone in the light of the sun falling through the empty window panes and the plaster on the walls had crumbled and cracked, but in contrast to the rest of the castle, it was pristine.

Nor were they alone here. A half dozen Sentinels occupied some of the seats, talking to each other in their lyrical language. Even in repose there was the sense of alertness and danger in them. Erich did not doubt that at a moment's notice they would get up and start killing with the lethal grace they possessed even while they were at rest.

Lady Swiftarrow and Druid Moonclaw were engaged in a deep conversation. Erich noticed that Caledra overheard some of it and her lips drooped in a frown. From their tones it was clear that there was some kind of argument going on there. For all he know about the Night Elven tongue, it might be an argument over seating arrangements or a discussion about the destruction of the world. With elves, one was just as important as the other. They promptly broke off when they saw Erich and his men enter. Captain Dawnbreeze and Lady Swiftarrow greeted each other with courtesy while Druid Moonclaw walked up to Erich to offer his hand.

It seemed that the Druid seemed tired. Maybe yesterdays battle fought by the Night Elves had been more exhausting. The normally impeccable posture of the druid drooped slightly and he was leaning on his staff. His crown of woodland leaves was slightly askew and his mantle of forest leaves seemed a threadbare. In the coldness of winter the druid looked ancient and withered. Erich could well believe that this being was over ten thousand years old. He grasped the hand and shook it.

"Captain Von Peiper. A pleasure to talk to you in less pressing situations than the thick of battle." Moonclaw said. The tones of his voice was somewhat akin to an old man talking to his grandson. It was hard not to like this ancient denizen of the forest who had affable manners.

"Likewise, Druid Moonclaw. I hope the battle treated you and your companions better than they treated ours." Erich replied.

The night elf laughed at that, and in doing so rose up to his full height for a moment. Erich and Luigi were of equal height and the tallest of their party. He was taller than them by a foot, and his body was lithe and knotted with muscles that bespoke of a life of hunting in the woods. "My lover and I were just talking about you when you joined us." He pointed to Lady Swiftarrow who was staring at the two of them coolly.

"Oh, do tell. I hate to be the object of some lover's quarrel, especially when I am not on first name basis with neither one of them."

Lady Swiftarrow walked up the two of them and put her hand in the crook of her lover's arms. "I was telling him that it ill suited him to take orders from a mercenary like you and fly like a messenger bird from Stormwind to Alterac at your beck and call."

"My lady, you are much mistaken. I simply asked if Druid Moonclaw would consider delivering the Late Lieutenant's package. Unless I am much mistaken, he used to do the same to when the poor man was still breathing."

"It ill becomes an ancient druid who fought in the war of the Ancients to be a carrier pigeon for a dead human." She replied.

"I would apologise my lady. But let me state my facts. The man is dead. All that he was is now in the past, apart from the letters he seemed to be writing to his family. I wonder what would happen if someone you loved disappeared without a trace."

Druid Moonclaw interjected. "Remember Suramar my dear. The human is right. The King of Alterac has requested me to send his letter to the King of Stormwind announcing his coronation and the rebirth of his Kingdom. As a member of the Alliance, I am honour bound to accept. These letters will travel with me when I have to leave to deliver the message."

Lady Swiftarrow was about to reply to that, but the presence of the chamberlain in his orange robes interrupted them all. In his orange robes holding the bronze staff in his hand, he looked like a bright wizard.

"King Isiden Perenolde wishes you to be present at his coronation. Follow me."

* * *

Serra was fast asleep when she gently felt someone touch her arm. In an instant she was up, with her Staff in her left hand and eyes wide open. The room was lit by a torch and in it's dim light she could see multiple figures standing outside the room looking down at her. Instinct took over. With her mind she began to summon the winds from Azyr. The wind elementals of Azeroth leapt to her command, eagerly obeying her every command. Spies, assassins or simply perverts, they would pay for disturbing her sleep.

As she unleashed a torrent of wind at the door, she found that the elements were suddenly unresponsive to her commands. This was something new. Someone in the room was wrestling with her for control of the elements. She had to think and quickly. One figure at the back had the elements swirling about him in a thick patina that shone brightly to her magesight. This was the target. Even as she tried to control the wind elements, she began to cast a fireball directed at the figure. The head of her staff glowed white hot for a moment, and then a brilliant fireball burst from it and arced towards the figure at the door. At the last moment, her fireball hit what felt like a icy barrier which consumed itself to negate the fireball.

Suddenly a shout went up in the room. "Serra, what's happening?" It was Dana's voice and there was a sense of surprise in the tone.

"To arms. We are under attack."

"What are you talking about?"

"Strangers tried to enter our room."

"No, I invited them here."

"Why?"

"We have to get dressed. There has been a problem."

"What?"

"The Wyrmrest temple is under assault now. The Dragon Aspects require our assistance."

"What are you talking about? How are we going to get there on time?"

"Get dressed and I will show you."

In the darkness of the room, Serra quickly began to put on her clothes. After a few minutes she was ready. A several human lifetimes of living in ships had taught her to quickly change into fresh clothes in the worst conditions. At the end of it, her staff emitted a faint white light, enough for her to see by. Serra was ready.

She went outside and was momentarily dumbfounded. There must have been twenty people outside. Her eyes were stunned by the differences between the group. A few of them were Night Elves, taller than her by a head and wearing various forms of Armour. A few humans, dressed up in the manner of Norscans along with a few dwarfs made most of the party. Almost irresistibly, her eyes were drawn to the two creatures at the back talking to each other.

One was male and the other was female. They had the outward appearance of Demons. Yet to her magesight, these creatures were the opposite of what Demons were supposed to be. Divine magic covered them, their outline looking bright white in her magesight The male was huge. In the gloom, he stood over eight feet tall, towering over the rest of the group. His head was bald and the tentacles on his chin writhed with expression as he conversed with her. His powerfully muscled and built upper body was supported on sturdy legs that reminded her of goats, down to the hoofs. Even in the cold, he wore barely anything apart from an elaborate cap made up of feathers and a loincloth to cover his loins. There was something feral about his demeanour. From the way he expressed himself to the way to his companion to the way the elements danced about him felt that this creature was at one with the world. The elements danced in harmony about him, like the waves wash around an island in a turbulent sea. In his hands he held a hammer and a sword, both enchanted with the elemental magic of Azeroth itself. The words "rockbiter" and "Windfury" sprang into her mind as if on their own.

His companion was just as eyecatching. The upper half of her body would have been the jealousy and desire of every mortal in the Old World. To say that her figure was perfect was an understatement. Every movement she made was a seduction that drew the unwary eye. For a race as focused on perfection as the Asur, she would have made the finest muse. Everything from her face, godlike in it's proportions and features, to the way her hips swayed as she moved brought everyone's attention to her. Unlike her male companion, she was dressed in golden plate armour that covered her entire body, leaving only her hoofs uncovered. Her hair was a cascade of white hair Nor was Serra the only one looking at her. Everyone else seemed engrossed in their conversation as well.

Suddenly the female snapped and said in common. "If she can wrestle control of the elements from you, she is powerful enough to save the world. I don't want any of your nonsense. Now go, apologise to her and not a word about her heritage. Deathwing stands on the precipice of destroying Azeroth and you have to whine about not liking the Sin'Dorei or those of their blood."

"What's going on here?" Serra asked still yawning.

Dana had slipped into a rather revealing dress that was artfully lined with fur but seemed quite useless against the cold. She walked up to her and said, "Nothing much. The two Draenei were arguing over whether they should include you in their party."

"What party? Can someone tell me what is going on here?" Serra asked in turn.

The male heard that and pointed a massive finger in Serra's direction. "Did you hear that? She doesn't even know what is happening. This is too dangerous. The world is on the brink of Annihilation and she does not even know what is happening."

The female replied, "She is asking why you you are shouting at her in the middle of the street." Turning to Serra she said, "Do you know why we are here?"

"Dana told me that the world was in peril and that mighty heroes and champions were needed to safeguard it. I volunteered to come here." Serra answered.

The small group parted as the the Draenei walked up to her and quickly grasped her hand. "The Light says that you speak the truth. And you are certainly mighty. Dana, tell her everything I told you."

Dana began to speak. "The Twilight's Hammer have started to begin their assault on the Wyrmrest Temple. There are massive forces that have besieged the temple. We cannot walk there, but rather, we will have to fly. Have you flown before?"

"Not in a long time." Serra lied. She had never flown before.

"Then that won't be a problem. I will tell the blue drake to make sure you don't fall off. You may ride with me, Serra. There are fifteen of us and the Dragonflights have sent some of their younger drakes to ferry us over. By dawn we should be at the the temple. With any luck we can bolster the defences."

Serra was about to say something about riding _dragons,_ when a low rumbling brought all of their attention to the sky. Three massive shapes were flying overhead slowly circling down. Even as they began to land, they changed shape and in the gloom their forms dropped in the midst of the group. A human, a Night Elf and one long eared High elf stood up wearing monochromatic robes of red, blue and green. No, that was wrong. They appeared human. With the aid of her mage sight, Serra saw them for what they actually were. No mortal could wield magics such as those, and with such ease. Even Teclis would have been awed. The intelligence that glimmered behind their eyes was that of an older race, tasked with preserving the world.

"Rhona, are your people ready?" The being in the shape of the high elf spoke.

The Draenei female nodded.

"Then climb on our backs. Speed is off the essence."

Before their very eyes, the shapes of the three people began to change. Their skins and robes were torn open and their bodies began to twist and contort as the vaguely human shapes changed into something more lizardlike, and draconic. Within a few minutes, Three large dragons stood in the town square, destroying the fountain. When the blue one turned to look at her, Serra felt an awesome power battering down her mind for a moment. Then itasked for permission to enter her mind while apologising.

 _We must hurry, Half-Elf, the world is in danger._

 _I am not a half elf._ Serra replied in a huff. Nevertheless she began to climb on the creature's back.

 _Whatever you may consider yourself to be, please climb on my back and strap yourself in._

During the next quarter of an hour the rest of the party climbed on top of the dragons. With a small smile Serra noticed that neither of them were as sure about their balance as she was. Despite being buckled in tightly they clung to the spines and scales of the Dragons, hoping not to fall off. She was a sailor of Cothique. She had battled on Dragonships during the most severe storms. Riding a dragon would not be too difficult, no matter how far or fast it flew.

Nevertheless, Serra was surprised when the Dragon began to fly. With a few swift beats of it's wings the port of Valgarde was left behind. She looked back to see the ground rapidly fading away. Her stomach lurched for a moment before her instinct took over. Just like being on a boat, staying balanced was the key, and it required to be in the place which moved the least. In the case of a dragon flying at an incredible speed, it had to be the base of the neck. She whistled by her companions as she began to move up the length of the dragon's body. Unlike her, they clung to the scales and spine of the dragon, barely opening their eyes. The Male that had dared to challenge her leapt in his seat with fright when Serra walked by him. She graced him with a particularly contemptuous glance.

Dana suddenly shouted, "Serra? What are you doing? Why aren't you in your seat?"

"Why should I be? You should stand up. The feeling is incredible." Serra replied. Rhona did not even open her eyes to look at her.

Like every person not from Caledor, Serra had always hated the Nobility of Caledor with a passion. Their arrogance knew no bounds – they even dared to keep their banners flying in front of the Phoenix King. All this stemmed from the fact that they had ridden on dragons in ages past. It had always felt absurd to her.

Now she knew better. As she undid the tight bun she knotted her hair into, she felt giddy, as though she were a child once more. Her hair swung wildly about her body, whipping in the wind. It felt glorious – and divine. In response to her glee, the tiny fragment of Asuryan's power housed within her body flared up. No wonder the Dragon Princes were so arrogant. After someone had flown on the back of a dragon, the world and it's inhabitants would forever seem slow and dull to them.

 _Why aren't you in your saddle?_ The dragon's thoughts bespoke of concern, worry and – admiration.

 _Why should I be? I have never ridden a dragon before. I want hate to be a piece of luggage on your back, especially while the view from the top of your head is bound to be spectacular._ She directed her thought at the dragon.

A deep rumbling sound filled the air. Everyone else on the dragon's back quivered in their saddle. Serra didn't. The dragon was amused at her response. His glee at her answer flooded her mind for a moment. She could not help but burst out laughing. Despite the overwhelming presence of the dragon surrounding her mind, she felt no danger. She was a mage of the White Tower, and could defend her mind.

 _Of all the younger races that have ridden on my back, you are the first one who has the temerity to say that the view on the top of my head would be better._

 _Well, most people lack imagination. May I step on your head?_

 _It would be my honour to have so brave a person upon my crown._

With a few light steps, Serra walked to the crown of the dragon and sat down. She had been right. The view was incredible. The landscape between the dragon's shoulderblades and neck shot past her with a speed that made her dizzy. The sky in front of her stretched for an eternity, calm and serene, almost like the sea.

 _I would ask you of your name, little one._ The dragon asked her.

 _I am Serra, Princess of Cothique._ She replied.

 _I have never heard of Cothique._ The dragon replied.

 _It is far away from here. What is your name great blue dragon?_ She asked in turn.

 _Alas, I am not a great dragon. As for my name, I am called Caergos, my broodmates and friends call me Caer._

 _It sounds like a nice name. Caergos I mean._

 _So does Serra. And please, call me Caer._

 _We hardly know each other._

 _And yet you had the boldness to walk all over my spine and sit on the top of my head. The younger races are full of surprises, as Kalec said._

 _So how far away are we from the Temple?_

 _We will reach there soon enough Serra. For now, enjoy the present moment._

Caer was right. Soon enough, this world would be in peril, like Ulthuan had been in countless times before. Serra did not doubt that her spells would be needed before long. But for now, she could live in the present, and enjoy the simple pleasures of life. The sound of wind whipping through her ears. The tickling sensation of her hair whipping about her face. The elation she felt as her body moved through the air with a speed the swiftest of the Great Eagles of the Annuli would not match.

Before long the moment would pass. Serra knew that. It was the great tragedy of the times. Happiness was short and fleeting, and soon enough, the winds would blow over idle vales and plains, turning them into bloody battlefields. The call of War was never ending. It was up to the Asur to protect the sanctity of all that was good.

And even here, on another world, Serra Serpentslayer, Princess of Cothique would exemplify the virtues of her race.

* * *

 ** _PrinceSheogorath, Caledra is more of a ranger than an actual soldier. Her forte is in hit and run attacks, not in massive line battles, especially battles in which the centre of the army collapses and runs away when they see the enemy. I agree it was a little hokey however. I will try to make it more grimdark in the future._**

 ** _Machcia, Did I? Maybe Erich is just a clever tactician and maybe it was just the wind blowing through Alterac that day. Who knows?_**

 ** _Rylomakin81, Yes, it will be incredibly hard to prove just how good the mercenaries are unless someone important in the alliance actually sees them in action on the field of battle. Can you guess who it is going to be? I have the name pinned as a story tag._**


	34. Chapter 34

**Legacy**

* * *

Her companions clung tightly to the dragon's body with their eyes closed, but sitting at the dragon's head, Serra felt the as though she was on top of the world. For the past hour they had been flying just below the level of the clouds. Once Serra had gotten tired of the wind whipping her face with it's onrush, she had cast a simple barrier around herself that dampened the assault. Within moments the wild assault of the wind had subsided to a simple sea breeze. Caergos's belly rumbled as he laughed at her spell.

 _I was wondering how long you were going to stay up there with the wind buffeting your face._

 _Why would I let a little wind get in the way of the spectacular view that your the top of your head provides._

 _Why indeed. The younger races' use of magic has always amused me. A year ago, Malygos would have seen your magic as an affront to our duty entrusted to us by the Titans themselves._

 _And now?_

 _Now...we realise that magic is a talent that must be tended to, like a tree. We must make sure that the flower of magic grows to it's natural splendour in the garden that Azeroth is, instead of treating mortal usage of magic as a weed that needs to be uprooted._

Serra mused in silence, taking care to shield her thoughts from Caer. It seemed that the Dragon's philosophy on magic was similar to that of Teclis. In the old world, humanity had long feared magic. It made sense for them to fear the arcane. Human bodies were immensely susceptible to the corrupting power of chaos and their tiny minds fell for the lies of the dark gods with extreme ease. She had seen enough of the savage Norscans to know that once it sunk it's claws into their feeble minds, humans would fall, twist and turn into horrific monstrosities easily.

It was Teclis who had decided to teach the humans how to wield magic with ease. Humans were incapable of learning Quaysh – the high magic that made the Asur what they were. Instead he had opted to teach them the basics of magic. Simple manipulation of the eight winds. According to him, it would make the humans stronger against Chaos, and help prevent them blowing up the world by accident.

It seemed that the dragon's stewardship of magic went further than even the High Loremaster. To them magic was a gift that was to be treasured and shared by all. It was a noble and high minded sentiment that the Asur would have thought in the days of the first Everqueens. They had suffered much since then. Every victory against the dark forces of Chaos or the Druchii had diminished both the ideals and the numbers of the once mighty high elves. A time would come in the future where they would not be able to uphold the ideals they held dear. She understood now why Teclis had done what he had done. When the Asur were a distant memory, their echoes would live on in the humans they had uplifted. It would be a distorted and inaccurate memory, but a memory nonetheless. That would be his legacy amongst the wider world.

 _You seem quiet._ Caergos' thoughts hit her mind

 _I was contemplating._

 _About what?_

 _Regarding my home. My people stand on the edge of a precipice. It does not mean that anyone else has to._

 _Are you ready for battle? The foe we will face is mighty and even when the dragons under his command are dead, Deathwing shall make a terrifying foe._

 _I have faced my share of terrifying foes before._

 _Not like this one._

 _I gave my oath to help Azeroth. A student of the White Tower does not sit idly by when the world is in danger._

A roar from one of the other dragons brought an abrupt end to their conversation. Slowly, one after the other the dragons began to circle downward in a spiral and the ground at last became clearer as Caergos banked during his turn.

The lands of the Howling Fjord had long disappeared. Now the ground was a large expanse of snowy wasteland. Only a few sparse trees grew in the cold and hard ground. The place reminded her of Naggaroth, and the cold and harsh domains of the Druchii. She turned to see several ancient ruins that had crumbled, and far away in the distance, by the sea she saw what seemed like an ancient forest with tall evergreen trees hidden in a valley. The broken bones of ancient dragons, each larger than Caergos littered the surface. In it's own savage way, the land was beautiful. She could understand why a place like this, at the roof of the world would be of interest to the Dragons. Here, civilisation had already been conquered by nature, and the primal spirit of the world ran wild.

When she saw the massive tower rising in the sky, she gasped in wonder. It stood tall in the lightening sky, dominating the cold and harsh landscape. With her sharp eyes, she saw the shapes flapping their wings in the distance. Even from this far away, she could be tell what they were. Dragons. There were dozens of dragons flying around the temple. Even in Caledor, home of the dragons, it was rare to see a single dragon in flight. Now, in the far distance they flew about the tower as thick as a flock of seagulls around the crow's nest. In all her long life, she had never seen a sight so majestic.

Suddenly a female dragon's thoughts battered her head with the fury of a storm. Serra staggered for a tiny moment before guarding her thoughts against this intruder. The power commanded by this individual dragon was immeasurable. Compared to her, Caergos felt like a mayfly.

 _Champions, the Temple is under attack by an army of the cult. The Aspect of the Earth will be destroyed at the very gates of the temple if you do not hurry!_

Her companions woke up with a start and opened their eyes. Dana gave a slight scream as she looked down. Caergos slowly began to fly towards the temple, gaining speed as he lost altitude. After a few minutes of flying Serra began to see details more clearly. What had once looked like the cold and dead ground from high above was now crawling with dozens of large shapes. They emerged from the earth and writhed around like beached kraken. The ground around them started to twist and darken, and Serra sensed the elements of the earth cry out in panic. Nor was she the only one.

The big male shouted, "The elements cry out in terror, something monstrous is approaching the temple."

"They are coming out of the earth itself." Serra shouted back.

"No, you stupid halfbreed. They are nothing before what is approaching the world. Azeroth cries out in alarm about what is to come. The new Earthwarder must be nearing the temple."

Serra bit back a retort. There was no point arguing with a big muscular goat-man that was bigger than an orc and seemed to be a potent magic user. Not while the rest of the world was in danger.

Caergos' thoughts washed over them all almost immediately

 _We are going land near the entrance of the temple and help secure it. We must hurry, the Earthwarder will be arriving soon and Deathwing will follow him to regain his power. He must be protected while we use the focusing iris to charge the Dragon Soul._

Serra had several questions to ask, but the dragon's tone brooked no argument. Their world was in peril, and there was no time to answer questions that were not necessary. She knew it well enough. When the time came to use the humans to secure elven interests, the Asur would use the same techniques to lead them to where they needed to be. She had to admit, it stung a little to be kept in the dark. Serra wondered what Erich would think of it if she revealed why she had hired him in the first place.

By this time, the dragons had flown low enough to the ground that Serra could see the ground far more clearly. Hundreds, may be thousands of worshippers surrounded the writhing tentacles, waving their arms and dancing in ecstasy. Suddenly the world grew black for a moment and a slimy and sibilant voice rang in her head. _Our eyes see you outlander. So you have come to witness our final triumph, forsaking those that you led here._

Serra smiled grimly. Of course it had to be the work of the Old Gods as the entities called themselves. She replied – throwing them a challenge with her mind. _No, I have come to destroy you._

The sound of cruel laughter filled her mind. Even with her years of discipline handling magic, Serra could not help but feel a shiver run down her spine. There was nothing benevolent about that smile. She had forgotten that she was contending with beings that were like demons, not like mortals. Their thoughts and actions were not meant to be understood by ones like her. Many a promising scholar had started to tread on the path of insanity that way, trying to figure out a motive behind the actions of Chaos only to end up becoming their pawns. She was needlessly exposing herself to corruption that way.

Caergos found a patch of land that was mercifully sheltered from the approaching horde of monsters. He landed there, his massive wings beating relentlessly to slow down his fault. Serra jumped down from his head and landed down on her feet with her arms outstretched. Her staff slowly floated down and landed in front of her, standing straight in the snow.

 _That was impressive Serra. Most would have crawled off my back and hugged the ground._ In contrast to the voice of the Old God, Caer's mind was calm and soothing. She let his words wash over her like a river, driving away any lingering presence of the malevolent presence.

 _Thank you._

 _Now we must be off, we spied the Earthwarder's group over on the other side of the ridge they should be here in a short while. Destroy the maw blocking his path and take him to the summit of the temple. Guard him with your life if you must. The future of Azeroth depends on it._

He took off, flying to join his brethren. Serra noticed dragons of different colours assaulting the tentacled creatures that seemed to spring forth from the large maw like appendages that had burst from the ground. The fighting was unlike anything she had witnessed. Dragons flew gracefully through the air, burning down dozens of cultists and monsters with a single breath. But there were more. There were always more of them. The maws themselves seemed to be weathering the assaults of the dragons before spitting forth more horrors to send towards the temple. There could be only a single outcome of this battle. The dragons – mighty as they were – would tire and the monsters would not stop.

It seemed Rhona seemed to realise this as well. She stood tall and proud in the frosty air, raising a hammer that seemed to be forged of arcane crystal. "Friends of the Alliance! The world stands on the brink of destruction. We must stop the madness that has drowned the world since the Shattering. These tentacles spew forth immense hordes of the Twilight's hammer. We must destroy them." As she spoke the hammer glowed with a power that felt divine. It would seem that Rhona could summon the power of her gods with an ease that would have shamed the most devoted Norscan.

They moved in the bitterly cold air, Serra and Dana working in pairs to keep the cold away from the rest of the group. It was a trivial spell, but now that Serra was using the principles of magic as they worked on Azeroth, she was proud. In the time of the ship's voyage a new form of magic had been learned by her. Some of the party, mostly humans with a few dwarfs halflings and one of the Night Elves thanked her. It was trivial, but Serra felt that she was helping in a way that was not completely destructive.

The gibbering creatures now saw the group approaching them and began to run at them speaking unknown words that seemed to assault her mind. It was a feeble attempt. Serra blasted one of them with a bolt of light, disintegrating the creature. Dana meanwhile was hurling fireballs at the oncoming horde while chanting and gesticulating non stop. The heavily armoured members of the party moved to the front to protect the spellcasters, Rhona amongst them. One of the dwarfs wearing a hood lit a pipe and stood on a small mound of snow, before unslinging his gun and firing at the charging horde of monsters.

The heavily armoured men and women stood in front, blocking any of the monsters from advancing past their lines. They shouted as they drove their swords, axes and hammers into the line, hitting the creatures hard and cutting the smaller cultists in half. Rhona was amongst them, murmuring something as she swung her crystal hammer – which glowed with every blow struck in one of the creatures. One, one of the larger creatures broke through the front and tried to charge into the small group of spellcasters at the back. In response one of the heavily armoured humans pointed his finger at the creature and Serra felt shadowy tendrils latch on to the thing and drag it back to him. It was dispatched almost immediately by the massive sword the human carried, splitting the abomination in half with a vicious overhand strike.

One of the dwarfs – a female wearing simple white robes walked along the length of the group holding a book and chanting softly. When she passed by one of the people fighting in the front line, Serra felt a small surge of divine power bolstering their their spirit and healing their wounds. Bleeding wounds and bruised muscles healed as she walked past them and the champions at the front fought with renewed vigour as they hacked down even more of the monsters and the cultists that followed them. Not the human who used the shadowy powers though.

He stood apart from the rest at one end of the line, and the dwarf made sure to avoid him as she cast her spells. Nor did he need it. His massive sword had runes cut upon it, and a fell power was in them. Serra could sense that the sword was made to do one thing. Take the life force of anything that was was hit with it and transfer it to the owner. The human used the weapon as an extension of himself, striking wildly and with a ferocity that would have cowed a Swordmaster of Hoeth, and letting his heavy armour take most of the damage. Any damage dealt to him was healed by dark magics that shrouded him. Serra felt the life force of the unfortunate cultists flow into him, fortifying his vitality in a manner that was dangerous and destructive. She thought of Vampires – humans that had been reanimated with an imperfect for of Dhar. They were powerful warriors, on par with the most brutal of Norscans and fast as any elf. It would seem that Azeroth had vampires of it's own, that drained the life of their victims through weapons instead of drinking their blood.

Meanwhile the hunk of muscle stood between the two lines planting small totems that were rich in magic. When all four were placed, he began to chant a long incantation that seemed to be more like a song. As he finished each stanza, one of the totems sprang to life. First there was a totem that rumbled and turned to stone, then another began to pour forth a small stream of pure water from the bowels of the earth. The third produced a small slyph of wind that blew away all the stench of the fight, leaving only the pure and cold air around them. The fourth sprang into a pure flame that produced no smoke, burning with an eerie blue light

When his small ritual was finished, the Draenei raised his hands up in the sky, and Serra felt the rumble of thunder in the cloudless sly. Almost immediately, a lightning bolt illuminated the area around them in it's blue-white glare. It struck the mass of cultists and their monsters, blowing a hole in their mob. For a moment Serra smelled the stench of burning flesh and putrefying corruption, before the wind totem flared up again and banished the smell far away. The Draenei didn't stop there. He began to cast a variety of spells, and Serra felt the elements acquiesce to his every request as a servant follows his master. The earth rumbled and spewed forth lava, incinerating their foe. The Wind struck them with a viciousness that tore the flesh from their bones, and a tidal wave of water sprang forth from the water totem, soothing the small party and taking away all their weariness. Serra found herself refreshed as though she had woken up from a full night's sleep.

She began to twist the latent magical energies unleashed by the battle, wrestling them into the shape of high magic. It saturated the area around them bolstering the potency of their spells. She then used some of it to cast a bolt of magic that raced overhead, striking a particularly big target – a mass of moving tentacles. It's soul – or whatever remained of it – caught fire that consumed it from the inside, seeking to scape through it's chitinous layer of skin. Small bits of it's unnatural armour fell apart and a blue white flame erupted from the pores. It screamed an unnatural sound as other bits of it's armour fell off as the heat seared it's softer innards. Like a lobster being boiled in it's own shell, the creature died a terrifyingly painful death. Serra did not even spare a second glance. She knew what High Magic would do to creatures of shadow.

Another group of cultists, dressed in robes were chanting on a rise some distance away from the large maw. Occasionally, A tortured elemental would materialise in front of them and start to walk towards the party, not caring how many dozens of it's own people died under their footsteps. Serra noticed that they were much tougher opponents than the masses of cultists. Armour was no proof against their attacks, and they took a lot of spells to destroy. Eventually they would overrun the position and slaughter the party. They had to be destroyed if the tide of the Twilight's hammer was to stop.

Serra beckoned Dana and pointed at the rise with the Twilight Summoners. She stared at them for a moment before she saw a massive molten giant rise from their ranks. She nodded in assent. The two of them broke away from the rest of the party and stood on the side of a cliff, staring directly at this new foe. After a moment, both of them began to cast a barrage of spells at them. Each one of them would have destroyed the spellcasters several time over. When the magical flames reached them, the air in front of the summoners flickered and distorted and the spells dissipated. It would seem that whatever their insanity might be, the Twilight hammer tried to protect its more important assets.

Dana seemed to agree. "They have cast an anti-magic zone around that rise. There is nothing we can do about it. We will have to close in with them for our spells to work."

"Ask the dwarf. Maybe he is a good enough marksman to pick them off." Serra replied. It seemed too far away for accurate shooting.

"Hey Gamil, move your big gun here. We need to take out the Twilight Summoners or they will keep summoning maddened elementals on top of us." Dana shouted to the dwarf.

The dwarf cocked an eye at them before saying, "Och, what do ye lasses want. A dwarf cannae shoot his blunderbuss in peace without everyone asking him for favours."

Dana walked up to Gamil and twisted his head to make him face the Twilight summoners. "We want you to shoot at them. They are summoning those angry elementals. Kill them or we will be overrun!"

The dwarf grumbled but nevertheless picked up his rifle and was frogmarched by Dana to a spot where he had a clear view of the coven. He knelt down, poured a mass of powder into his gun and took careful aim. After a few moments of slowly breathing, he pulled the trigger. His muzzle flashed and Serra heard the sound of the gun firing. One of the figures on the rise crumpled and died. The dwarf smiled grimly and began to reload his blunderbuss.

He never had a chance to finish. One of the elementals being summoned roared and hurled a gigantic spike of ice at the dwarf. Just as accurate as the shot he had fired, it struck him squarely in the chest. Gamil's body exploded in a shower of blood gore and rapidly shattering ice. The snow turned crimson with his blood. In an almost anticlimactic finale, his head seemed to be unharmed, with the beard flying freely in the wind.

Dana stared at the head dumbly, refusing to believe that her eyes were not deceiving her. Serra had to drag her away from the body. She stared at her dumbly, her eyes wide open in horror. Serra shook her for a while before she started to speak again. "I killed him. I killed Gamil."

"What? No! That thing over there killed him." Serra said pointing to the living spirit of ice that was now wildly hurling shards of ice in their direction. Luckily for the party, most of them hit the cultists themselves rather than the any of the adventurers. The few that managed to land in their lines were easily dodged.

"How do we stop them Serra? We are all going to die here!"

"Shut up. We won't die here. I want you to distract the summoners. Leave the rest to me."

Dana nodded and began to cast a few spells. Rattled after the death of Gamil, most of them had lost their potency. They seemed weak and the shield barely flickered as it absorbed her fireballs and arcane missiles.

Despite the death of the dwarf, he had done what Serra had needed him to do. The spellcasters were now too few to both keep their field up and summon the elementals. Now with Dana's assault on their position they were now forced to defend themselves. Despite her panic, Dana seemed to get a grip on herself, duelling with the coven of cultists dodging their attacks and sending back some of her own. Eventually she would tire and falter, but Serra already had a plan to deal with that.

She felt her consciousness extend out of the body and reach for the stars above azeroth. She felt something that she needed. A large piece of rock that seemed to float aimlessly above Azeroth tethered to the world. She pulled at it with all her might, and slowly but steadily her spirit guided it towards the battlefield. As it began to move down, it's velocity increased, and the air around it seemed to burn with a blue flame as it caught fire. Her spirit entered her body and she looked up.

The clouds began to swirl around the meteor, creating what seemed like a massive tornado high in the sky. And through the eye of the tornado, with a speed faster than any dragon flew the rock. So high was it's speed that most of it's extremities caught fire. Now it glowed like a piece of sky falling down to earth. Everyone on the field of battle, whether it be a tentacled monstrosity, crazed cultist or mighty dragon stopped fighting to stare at the falling meteor. As it appeared in the sky, Serra put a large amount of magic into the rock. It's speed increased tenfold, and it burned with a bright blue flame as the magic ignited the minerals in the rock. It was a technique used by the priests of Vaul to forge blades of Starmetal. Now the Twilight's Hammer would taste molten metal crashing into their coven of mages.

As it began to burn up, the sound deafened all others on the field. The spellcasters began to power up their shield as everyone saw the trajectory of the falling piece of star metal. The humans called it the Comet of Cassandora. The foolish creatures never knew that comets never fell down. She supposed the details did not matter. With an almighty roar it struck the spell barrier. It flickered wildly for a moment as it drunk in the residues of Serra's magic. It did not matter. The momentum of the falling meteorite flattened the entire rise. A plume of smoke and steam rose up in it's place and the cries of the scalded or pulverised cultists were nearly as loud as the sound of the crash itself.

When the smoke cleared, the rise was gone. Nothing was left, apart from an impact crater that had flattened cultist, monster and massive tentacle alike.

For a moment, only the sound of the rushing wind greeted her, then the party burst into cheers. With renewed vigour they began to hack, and burn away at the horde of monsters. Now the momentum was on the side of the adventurers. Slowly and steadily, bit by bit, they began to push back the tide of monsters towards the maw that had spawned them. Even the dragons that were flying overhead took heart and began to burn down huge swathes of the cultists and their dark spawn. Victory was ever in closer.

Serra saw it first. Five smaller dragons were flying towards them, carrying people on them were trying to land near their position. Rhona saw it as well. She directed everyone to move towards the dragons. As the abominations were pushed off away from their positions and began to retreat, the party ran towards the dragon. The dwarf priestess kept chanting as she ran, and Serra felt a burst of magic fortifying her spirit while taking away some of her fatigue. Even as they approached the giant maw, the several tentacles shot up, swatting the small dragons like flies. The dragons ducked and weaved but they were eventually caught out. One by one they were caught by the tentacles and were crushed. Even as they died, the dragons made sure that their passengers managed to land unharmed.

What she saw made her start. One of the passengers was an orc. His large and muscled body was swaddled in a robe, and he wore large beads on his neck. In his hands was a large hammer that acted as a locus for all the elementals on the battlefield. Around him were a similarly odd assortment of people. One was a lean and dark skinned tusked creature. It walked with a hunch and wore a mixture of plate and mail armour. Another was a large cow shaped beastman with a tranquil expression on his face. He wore robes of cloth and chanted in a manner similar to the dwarf priestess. In all her life Serra had never thought that beastmen could be calm and composed. They were unstable creatures of Chaos and the fact that one of them was ostensibly defending the world was perplexing. The last two members seemed to be elves. One of them was almost corpselike, and carried a blade similar to the one borne by the human warrior. She could see the dark magic that suffused the proud warrior with her magesight. The last one was a young elf. Her eyes glowed green and the stench of demonic magic permeated her spirit.

Her companions were similarly not pleased to see the newcomers. The Draenei male shook his head and the dwarf priestess scowled. Rhona simply sighed and said, "Listen. We have to safeguard Thrall. He carries the Dragon Soul and with it we may yet defeat Deathwing."

"Which one is Thrall?"

Everyone stared at Serra for a moment. "What do you mean you don't know who Thrall is? He was selected to be the Aspect of the Earth." The Draenei male said.

"Serra, the orc. We have to protect the Orc." Dana answered her.

Serra took a deep breath. This was getting more ridiculous by the moment. Orcs were savage and mindless creatures that lived only to fight and slaughter. Yet now one of them was to be defended with her life if need be. She wondered what Erich would think if he were here. Knowing the human, he would probably shoot the orc in the head and let everything else play out. She had to be better than this. Azeroth was not the old world. If she was to defend this world, she would have to defend the orc. After a few seconds, she slowly nodded.

Any more formal greeting would have to wait for even as the party ran towards them, the giant maw began to quake and disgorged a larger number of the tentacles and monsters. Everyone began to fight these new intruders, trying to clear a path to the base of the tower. Some of the dragons tried to swoop in to help them, but it was for naught. The tentacled maw began to writhe around, trying to swat the dragons out of the air. One of them went down and the rest backed off and began to fly away, attacking easier targets. Suddenly a shout went up from among the party.

An old man, ornately dressed in the robes of a priest and with a conical hat on his head emerged from the tower. A light shimmered around him, and the creatures seemed to retreat away from him. He beckoned the party over as he hurled bolts of light at the surrounding creatures. He croaked, "Get inside! Quickly! I will hold them off."

They ran inside, making sure no one else in shared to fate of gamil. Whenever one of them fell behind, another shouted to the group to draw alarm. Bit by bit, they slowly began to race to the base of the temple. At one time, the she-elf was caught by one of the tentacle that had burst from the ground. A blast of scorching fire from Dana freed her. In turn, she – thinking that Serra was in danger – froze a cultist solid and shattered it with a lance of ice. While Serra was annoyed at this behaviour, she gave a quick nod to the elf. After all, it would not do her any good to make antagonists now.

When all of them managed to make it inside the temple, Serra looked up and gasped. From the inside, the tower seemed even more vast than the outside. It was shaped like a massive and hollow pillar with fluted columns that rose to the top of the tower. She could not see the roof of course. It was far too high even for her eyes. The designs on the floor seemed to be mechanical and functional, but were drawn with such elegance that she could scarcely keep her eyes off them. A vast reservoir of magical power was enshrined in this place. It was similar to the power that Caergos had exuded, but far greater in both depth and might. Despite the alien appearance of this place, all this was perhaps the least strange thing about this place. The one thing that truly felt strange was a sense of familiarity in the magic.

At first, Serra had tried to ignore it. She was doubtless tired, and taking the splendour of Wyrmrest Temple all at once had doubtless made her giddy. It was to be expected after all. Scholars from the White Tower would have given their very lives to be where she was right now. An ancient relic of inscrutable power now surrounded her, dormant in some aspects, fully awake in others. She simply sat down in a quiet corner of the vast antechamber to better process her surroundings. This place was awash with ancient magic – this place had been old when the Everqueen was still asleep in the mystical forests of Avelorn. There was no possible way there was any kind of familiarity between the magic she had experienced back home, and here on Azeroth. She could not even put a finger on where the sense of familiarity originated.

As others in the party began to converse with each other, Serra was brought to the present. This was a mystery for another time. Azeroth was in peril. If she was to find a way back home, it must survive. This meant that whatever plan the dragons had come up with to safeguard the world needed to be followed. She could dwell on the mysterious magic of this place later, if she survived. Serra had not forgotten that if necessary, she was to sacrifice her life to protect the orc. It galled her to consider her life worth less than an orc. Only an interest in keeping her head down, heading to the place called Ulduar to find a way back to her home was making her stay with the group. If it came down to it, Serra of Cothique would certainly not lay down her life for one orc.

Suddenly the old man's voice croaked. "And now, Shaman, you will give the Dragon Soul to me." Serra's ears perked up at that. There was a latent threat in that voice. She doubted that whatever reason he wanted it was for a good one. She got up to warn the orc, but it was already ahead of her.

"I will not, Archbishop. It will never be yours." Serra was stunned. This orc's diction was impeccable. There was no guttural growling or threat about 'krumpin da git'. Perhaps it was a trick of Common, or maybe she was now in the presence of the most eloquent orc that had ever been seen by an Asur.

The human sighed. There was a look of sadness and genuine regret in his eyes. " I suppose it has to be this way, then. If only you'd seen what I've seen. THEN you'd understand." Slowly, the regret and sadness in his eyes began to be replaced by a mad glint that Serra was all too familiar with.

The orc seemed genuinely puzzled at this response. "You were a figurehead of the Light, Benedictus. How could you betray your own people?" He asked.

The human cackled madly. A disturbing sound – a mixture of genuine mirth and madman's yell filled the room. Finally, the old man, Benedictus stopped laughing. He pointed at the orc and said, "There is no good. No evil. No Light. There is only POWER!" The last word was a scream, and a taunt, and everyone in the room picked up their weapon in alarm.

The human seemed to grow and shine with a light he proclaimed, "We serve this world's TRUE masters! When their rule begins, we will share in their glory!" The light around him took the shape of a corona and he pointed at Serra. "And you, we will feast on your ashes! Now, Die!"

The fight began. Almost immediately Serra felt a wave of divine magic directed at her feet, moving quickly she dodged the blast, but the ground beneath the projectile continued to burn with a radiance that Serra could feel was painful to the touch. Instead she – along with the rest of the party began to focus on damaging the human's corona.

The heavily armoured warriors were at the front, hacking, slashing and stabbing away at the the human's shield of light. Together, they conspired to block his sight from the spellcasters that were unleashing a magical assault on his divine shield. It worked suprisingly well. For most of the time, the human focused on smiting the people in front of him, occasionally using his magic to blast them away so that he could have a clear view of the magi that were assaulting him. It was largely futile. The adventurers, no matter their race were tough warriors, and quickly got up to overwhelm the human. After a while his halo began to dim and everyone began to hit him with spell, spear and sword.

In his turn, the human called forth a burst of holy power that blinded everyone in the room. Using her mage sight, Serra sensed the last burst of his divine power escaping his body. It seemed that he was finished. After a brief moment, another source of power flooded his body. Even as it passed by them, Serra heard the baleful noises of the old gods and braced herself for some new foe. When she opened her eyes, she saw that the human had been imbued with a shadowy aura, and his power had increased fivefold.

The fighting became far more desperate. Serra, Dana and the elf mage worked to dispel most of the harmful shadow spells the human cast. It protected the parties from a massacre, but even the residual magic was harmful enough that the dwarf and the cow-man seemed exhausted. No matter how mad he was, the human was certainly too powerful to be ground down via attrition. They had to end it – and soon.

The human seemed to realise it as well. He began to slowly go on the defensive, whittling down the adventurer's stamina by making them attack several shadowy copies of himself. Slowly and steadily the powers of the healers began to wane. They shifted their tactics to heal any major injuries, and let the lesser ones be. The orc was having none of it. He stood on a dais, casting healing magic on the warriors at the forefront, bolstering their confidence. To Serra's surprise, it was wholesome. The water elementals of Azeroth danced to his slightest whim, cleansing both the bodies and spirits of the adventurers as the battled.

After a few minutes, the human cast a powerful spell. The the mages nullified most – but not all – of the damage. Everyone around the human was pushed to their knees and struggled to get up for a moment. It was all that he needed. Harnessing his shadowy magic, he trapped the orc in a ball of coruscating dark energies that severed his connection to the elements completely. At the same time, all the exertion had taken a heavy toll on the healers. They both fell unconscious, the dwarf first – and then the cow-man. Now the only people left to challenge him were the the three mages.

The elf took stock of their foe. She was perspiring from fear and stress. Serra could feel that her magical focus was being lost. Sooner or later, she would panic and unleash a barrage of magic on the human that would be largely useless. The human was protected by shadowy energies that behaved akin to Dhar. Serra could feel the loathesome taste of Dark magic at the back of her tongue. The air inside the Temple was thick with it.

The human simply pointed at the elf. Despite the fact that he unleashed no attack on her, the elf panicked, and began to cast a large number of simple spells that sprang to her mind to keep him away. It had been as Serra expected. Individually, they were too weak to destroy him, and the shadowy power that the Old Gods had blessed the human with were causing him to deflect most of the attacks. Even Dana joined in with a volley of her spells. Combined, they slowly began to make headway against the human, but the outcome was certain. Both of them would tire themselves out before the human was hurt.

But there was something the human had not counted on. Serra had several human lifetimes worth of harnessing the winds of magic. Even as the assaults of both Dana and the female elf reached a crescendo, she made her move. Slowly she began to weave the remnants of magic – elemental, arcane, divine and shadow – into one cohesive whole. The mastery of the Asur over magic was due to their ability to use vast amounts of raw and unrefined magic into a cohesive whole – harmonising the discordant strings, like an harp being repaired. The fight with Benedictus had unleashed a torrent of magic here that was just waiting to be spun into shape by her.

As she finished, a small ball of pure High magic coalesced into her hand. Time itself seemed to stop as she slowly let the small orb float upward. It illuminated the edges of the tower as it went upward, and to Serra it seemed that the walls of the Temple seemed to glow with it's ascent. Then she unleashed her secret weapon. She reached down, deep into her very soul and felt the sacred flame of Asuryan burning within her. It was a small ember – for which Serra had prepared fuel. The world vanished. All that remained was the ball of High Magic, and a spark of the Creator's Divine Flame. Her spirit exerted itself as the two met and completed each other.

With a flash, the ball burst into life. A phoenix made of Asuryan's flame roared in the tower. It spread it's wings and flew upwards with wings made of fire. As it flew upward, something extraordinary happened. The lines on the tower's wall began to glow with a light, similar to Asuryan's flame but purer – if such a thing was even possible. The only thing that was impure in the tower was the human, who had worn the gifts of his god like a cloak surrounding his body and soul. With a shriek that was the roar of Asuryan's sacred flame – the aspect of Asuryan dove downwards and struck the human.

His dark god given spell barrier shattered, burned by the harmonious energies of the Creator God. He crumpled to the ground as his body caught fire. Within a few moments, every spell he had cast had been reversed. The orc broke free of the magical prison he had been cast in, while everyone else weakly began to get up. Meanwhile Serra felt weary. Using the Flame of Asuryan was dangerous. If she was not careful, she would end up using it all. She assumed that the creator god had given it to her for a reason – and that it had something to do with the place known as Ulduar. When she had given life to her spell, the entire tower had resonated with her magic. She suddenly understood why the magic had seemed so familiar.

Some of the most eccentric Loremasters of the White Tower dabbled with the magic practised by the Slann – the toadlike rulers of the Lizardmen of Lustria. According to them – their kind was made by the Old Ones at the dawn of creation. Supposedly, the Gods themselves had given them a sacred charge and taught the use of magic and technology to safeguard the world against chaos. The Lizardmen were an enigmatic people, but their Slann overlords were among the most powerful beings that had ever fought Chaos. Serra had the opportunity to see several trinkets of the Old Ones – stolen by brave and mad elves or humans. The power within them was largely spent, but the magical aura they had given off was unique. Or rather. Had been unique.

Wyrmrest Temple was undoubtedly saturated in a much more purer form of Old One magic. It is why it had seemed to familiar to Serra. She had felt the pull of this magic before during her time in the White Tower, but to face a font of it so pure and so strong had made her feel giddy enough to think that it had been a mistake. Now she understood why she could so easily cast magic on Azeroth despite the lack of any Winds of Magic.

She was roused out of her magical musings by the Orc. "Champions, we must travel to the top of Wyrmrest Temple and empower the Dragon Soul." Even as he said that, a rift opened near the floor of the temple.

A high elf strode out of the rift. The power coming from her shadowed everything but the orc. Serra was suddenly aware of how insignificant she was on Azeroth. She had darker skin, similar to Sailors that worked on longer distance voyages to Ind and wore clothing that was certainly not made for the colder weather outside. The only thing that set her apart were the massive horns on her head. Magic akin to Life permeated her very being and Serra's mind ran back to the forest Glades of Avelorn. She was every bit as powerful as the everqueen – perhaps even more so.

Another one stepped forth from the portal. This person from this close had chosen to take the form of a bearded high elf. It was grotesque to see an elf with dark brown hair that seemed to stretch into the folds of his robe. There was an odd sense of phase about him. It seemed that heseemed to exist slightly out of phase – as though he was both here in front of her, and somewhere far away all at the same time.

The third one was another female, in the form of a night elf. Her hair was green as grass, and like her compatriot, horns sprung from her head. A dreamy sensation followed her and much like the male high elf, Serra felt that she was present in a far distant place even as she stood before her on the temple floor.

The last one was a blue haired Asur. He had the build and body of a Chrace woodsman with a young face. His hair was a shade of bright blue, and Serra could feel a similar power to Caergos, but magnified several times over. Serra wondered who they were and why the blue haired one looked like he could belong in Finubar's court.

They all knelt before the orc, who saluted them in turn. "Hail, Thrall of the Horde. The fate of the world now rests in the hands of mortals once more. Now we must empower the Dragon Soul so that Deathwing must be defeated. Once this is done, our power will wane. The sacred task that the Titans gave us – the protection and nurturing of Azeroth will belong to the Younger Races."

The blue haired Asur conjured something from the air. It was a device of ancient make. Serra could tell that it was a device capable of concentrating a tremendous amount of magic. With foreboding she understood what was to happen next.

The orc produced a small amulet from his robes. It was golden and it's surface seemed to shimmer as he reverently placed it in the centre of the device. The four beings of godlike power circled around it and held up a palm of their hand.

Several things happened next. The room seemed to disappear momentarily and everyone there was left in a black void. A tremendous amount of magic, more than Serra could comprehend flowed from their bodies and through their outstretched arms into the device. The device glowed with many hues of light and concentrated the entire magical potential of the four beings in the smaller amulet the orc had placed it in. Once it was done, the world returned around them. A sense of foreboding filled Serra's mind. She knew she had witnessed the end of an age. It was up to them to make sure that it was not the last. Everyone else seemed to realise this. The warriors gripped their weapons more tightly and the mages began to marshal their magical power.

Then the walls of the temple shook. The elements cried out in despair and three people – Serra, the Orc and the big Draenei Male looked everywhere in panic. Moments later, the roar of a vast being – terrifying in it's rage shook everyone in the room to their bones. The four beings in the shape of elves looked at each other in sadness. "He is here. Deathwing is attacking the temple." The tanned high elf said.

The blue haired Asur raised his hands for a moment and the world vanished for an instant. Serra felt that she was travelling through vast distances almost instantaneously. A moment later, she was on top of Wyrmrest Temple. She could see the vast land stretched out before her, snow and rock covering the landscape. This was a beautiful and harsh place.

Once the graceful cupola must have provided a sense of shade and protection from the elements. No longer. It had been shattered very recently. A fine dust floated in the air around them, the remains of the parts that had been broken in the violence of the blow. It was now clear what was happening. Far over the horizon, a dark shape flew by at an incredible speed. Even from this vast distance, Serra could feel the malice and pure rage that saturated the creature. A hatred of countless years was directed at them. Thus, for the first time she beheld the form of Deathwing.

A host of smaller dragons began to assault the tower. The defenders – dragons of many hues duelled with them in the air. They fought with their magical breaths and then fought with their claws. Magic – arcane, life, and and elemental began to saturate the air around them at a quick speed as the magnificent beings battled each other with a hatred that was visible to her even on their reptilian faces and the lizardlike glare of their eyes. Serra's heart wavered at this. To the Asur, Dragons were their ancient and trusted allies. Aenerion had died alongside his friend, making sure the world would live to fight another day. To see elder beings like this hurl themselves upon each other would have been the nucleus of a tragic epic that the poets of the Everqueen's court would compose.

Serra felt something moving towards them with blinding speed. It was not the big dark dragon who still flew around the tower. No, this was something else. Something far more .

The horned night elf sensed it as well. "I sense a great disturbance in the Balance approaching. The chaos of it claws at my mind."

As soon as she said that, the creature began to move with an incredible speed towards them. Serra sensed the chaotic magics that had made this dragon and almost swooned from the strain. It was unstable, and imbued by raw magical matter – of the kind that blew from the Chaos gates at the poles – had made the creature a twisted and incredibly dangerous adversary.

He flew towards them and crashed into the balcony. This close, Serra noticed how huge the creature was. Each of his teeth – covered in dark magic was as big as her arm, and it stared at them with a baleful eye.

"I am the bell that tolls your doom, for this moment alone I was made. Look upon your deaths mortals and despair! For NOW IS THE HOUR OF TWILIGHT!" He declared.

The party was made of stern stuff. With a practised ease, the warriors charged at the exposed head of the monster and began to hack at it with powerful strikes and blows. The mages began to sling their magical missiles at them. After a moment, Serra joined them.

Much to her chagrin, the creature was far too powerful for them to defeat. The four powerful beings, mighty as they were were too spent from the lack of their powers to aid in the fight. The fate of the world, was now in the hands of mortals.

The orc stood apart from them, raising his hands to the sky. "Strength of the Earth, heed my call! Shield them in this darkest hour, the last defenders of Azeroth."

They had called him the earthwarder. Serra now understood why. At his request, elementals from the region hurried to defend the warriors fighting at the front, shielding them from the worst of the dragon's dangerous breath. Waves upon waves of Dhar crashed upon them, and eventually, one of them – a human with bronzed armour fell down and did not get back up. The draconic monster simply crooned, "You have no hope against Ultraxion!"

Serra realised that the dragon would outlast them. She gathered the latent energies unleashed by the battle and began to purifying it, weaving it into a harmonious strain of pure Quaysh. During this time, Serra realised that Ultraxion was too powerful to be destroyed directly. Dark magic that poured from his shattered bindings had made him too unstable. She thought of the time Teclis had defeated N'kari, but destroying it's bindings and banishing it back to the Warp.

She patiently waited to make her next move. Meanwhile the adventurers and the earthwarder tried desperately to stem the creature's onslaught. Even as they slowly gave ground to the creature, they reaped a heavy toll on it's body. Serra felt the chaotic magics beginning to seep through it's rapidly disintegrating hide. As Ultraxion's instability waxed, Serra made her move. She made a ball of magic that would strike at the being's soul, stunning it. Even as the spell launched, she readied a final spell. It had been used to unbind arcane items with a precise strike, and Serra knew that when the dragon flinched, it would give her an opening.

The ball of Quaysh struck the creature's spirit, or what remained of it. It recoiled in horror and tried to move away, and then Serra saw it. It was too unstable to be held in place by it's body alone. Chanting the name of Lileath and Hoeth, she focused her attack on a tiny spot on it's chest that was already unravelling.

With a roar that deafened everyone, Ultraxion began to unravel. Serra's spell, fed by the abundance of magic that flowed through the being began to move quickly through it's spine and ribs, exciting the unstable dark magic and making it combust. It was beautiful application of magical principles, and she could not help but laugh as the Ultraxion flapped wildly as his body began to combust from the inside out. She turned to look at the party. Already the priests, Rhona and the darker skinned elf were healing their comrades. Serra felt tired but happy.

The blue haired Asur walked close to her. "That was pretty interesting. You just broke his arcane bindings and let the unstable shadow magic tear him from inside out. I am impressed."

"Thank you." Serra replied. "I am called Serra."

"Kalec" he said as he stood beside her and looked at the horizon.

It seemed that Deathwing had not taken the fall of his lieutentant lightly. He flew straight towards the top of the tower and roared in anger. This close, Serra almost fainted. The dragon was bigger than Ultraxion by a much larger amount. What was terrifying was the fact that from head to tail, he was covered with thick metal that sucked the magic dry from the region. Serra felt faint as her magic began to drain away.

To the credit of Azeroth's defenders, they charged into the breach with an abandon that would have made Tyrion proud. They attacked the dragon with the last of their strength, desperately trying to clear a way for the Orc. The priests shielded the orc from them and jumped into the fray, using the last of their magical power to shield their allies one final time. As the dragon sucked in his breath, Serra realised that all hope had faded.

Deathwing was simply toying with them while he searched for the orc. The female elf mage quickly cast a spell on him, and the orc began to turn invisible. Serra felt the magic weave around him, the light going through is body instead of reflecting off it. It was a desperate gambit to keep him at bay while Thrall prepared the Dragon Soul.

And it was failing. Warrior after warrior fell dead, crushed to death by Deathwing's teeth or burned away to a cinder. Serra saw the hunched and tusked creature rise to his full height, taller than even the cow man as he shouted, "For da Horde" in a deep gravelly voice. He had mostly been throwing spears at them, but now he charged ahead. Incredibly, his headlong rush took him right to the dragon's teeth and he jammed his last spear in the Deathwing's mouth. The dragon reared for a second – mostly from surprise, but it was enough. The Draenei male dragged Rhona away and asked the elementals to protect her. After a moment, he returned to fight, picking up a discarded shield and hammering away at Deathwing's massive lower jaw.

Serra saw Dana faint as the last of her magical power gave out. She cast a shield on the fallen body of her comrade. The magical energies unleashed by Deathwing had grave consequences for everyone, but for her it was a boon. Magic – once absorbed by his armour was now saturating the air once more. This was something she could handle.

Gripping her staff she began to walk towards him. Her ears picked up the sound of a moving footstep close beside her.

"His armour is too thick and will absorb the power of your attack, orc. We have one chance at doing this right." She said.

"Then what do we do?" The orc's voice sounded like thunder – like an earthquake that tumbled mountains down. Even when he was hiding, the power was immense.

"I will buy you an opening. Use it."

"Good luck, half-elf" Came the reply.

"I am not a half-elf" Serra replied and strode forth to battle with the monster.

Even as she walked, she began to twist the latent and spent energies into waves of high magic. The Asur were the greatest practitioners of magic, and through discipline and strength of mind they had saved the world before. She walked in the footsteps of Caledor, Teclis and a thousand other mages who had made the world a safer place. She knew what she needed to do. A lesser mortal might have quailed, giving away the godlike power Asuryan himself had granted her. She knew that it had been for a purpose.

The Asur creed was a better world for all. She would exemplify this creed. Exhausted, she knew that the spell she was about to cast was going to kill her. A moment's hesitation crossed her mind. She would never see the windswept hills of Cothique or return to her father's manse in the wooded countryside. She felt the whispers of dark gods entering her mind, trying to erode her sanity. It was enough to make her cackle.

Even Deathwing took notice of that discordant. He flung the draenei male assaulting him with the gentlest nudge of his head. The poor hero went and fell down in a pile of rubble. The tusked creature was simply swallowed whole – a gruesome way to die. He then fixed his molten glare on Serra. They saw each other for a moment, before the dragon moved to attack. This was happening too soon. She needed time. Desperately, she fought to calm her mind. This was a battle of wills, and a Child of Ulthuan never quails before the shadows.

"So you are the mighty Deathwing, bringer of the hour of twilight." Serra surprised herself with how laconic she sounded. The fate of the world hung in the balance as Thrall readied to strike with the Dragon Soul and she was talking to the being that would bring about it's destruction.

Deathwing's baleful glare passed over her like a hurricane. Serra fought to keep her mind free of his influence. Despite the battering that he inflicted on her mind, Serra stood firm. She was afraid that she was going to quail, but Aenerion had braved the dreaded hosts of Chaos when he defended the world. She could manage one overgrown lizard. Then, just as suddenly, the assault passed. Deathwing looked at her and laughed in return. His armour covered his lower jaw, and the hinges were a weakness. In his mockery, he had shown his weak spot.

"I had honestly expected more." Her spell was ready.

Deathwing opened his mouth to breathe fire. Serra quickly cast a spell, warping time around them for a moment, the world froze around her, and only she was moving.

No, not only her. The bearded high elf stood next to her. "Ah, I see. You are not from Azeroth are you?" He said, smiling down at her.

"No, I am not" Serra replied.

"That is very noble of you." He replied.

"What is your name, ancient one."

"I am Nozdormu, aspect of the bronze dragonflight and guardian of time. All times – past, present and future are open to me. And now, that power is in the hands of mortals like you." He replied.

"It is an honour to have fought alongside noble souls such as you." Serra answered. Her spell was ready, and soon she would put it to the ultimate test. "Even if I survive by some miracle, the home I swore to defend will be closed to me." She said. There was no sadness in her voice. No remorse. Caledor the Dragontamer had given his life to taming the Vortex. He had not blanched away. Neither could she.

"Then try to survive. If my knowledge of time has taught me something – it is that in time, all things are possible. I wish you luck."

The bubble of time popped and Serra was back into the present. Deathwing opened his mouth to drench her in a gout of his corrupted fire, and Serra struck.

She used the last of Asuryan's sacred flame to complete the task. As it left her body, Serra felt empty, as if she had been stripped naked. It took the form of a phoenix, that sacred bird of the Asur and flew towards the dragon's mouth even as the gout of flame launched.

The two flames met, Corrupted Dragonflame meeting Asuryan's purifying power. The phoenix tore through the jet and lodged itself in the dragon's mouth before the reaction between order and chaos caused an explosion. Serra felt shard of white hot metal striking her body. The pain was blinding. Instinctively, she raised her hand to protect her eyes. A moment later, her arm was filled with shards of metal that began to greedily suck away the magic from her body.

 _So this is how I die._ Serra thought, _on top of a tower, in another world, being bled away be the lower jaw of a dragon._

Even as she fell, she saw what her spell had accomplished. The Dragon's armour had been blown apart. The orc, Thrall had a chance. Her dulled senses felt the magic from the Dragon Soul erupt and flow towards the Deathwing. Without his armour protecting him, he would not be able to take the full brunt of the blast.

Serra did not know if it had struck him or not. She was content. In life, she had always shied away from endangering herself or her kin. It was why she had recruited the mercenaries in the first place. Now, she was dying on the roof of a distant world, giving away all her power to save it. She wonder if Loec would be amused. Perhaps he would be, Serra thought as the last of the divine power given to her faded away. This was her legacy. As long as this world – Azeroth lived on, she would be remembered – as a half elf no doubt. That alone should have irked her, but now she was too tired to feel anything but relief. She knew that she had used the power given to her in a manner that would have made her tutors proud.

As her eyes closed, she saw the corona of a phoenix, made of pure flame soaring high in the darkness...

* * *

 _ **A/N Sorry for the delay. I realised that I suck at writing magic based combat, and that I had to do a writeup for an entire dungeon and raid. So I did the next best thing and shortened it somewhat. Hope you guys enjoy it. I will start writing about the mercenaries soon.**_

 _ **Aburg76, hope you like it.**_

 _ **DIOS, indeed it did.**_

 _ **Guest, so nice to see you say something else other than More please. Keep it up.**_

 _ **Who says that they have to go to Stormwind to have someone important in the Alliance notice them. After all, there is a war waging in Kalimdor...**_

 _ **DasPeas, hope it was glorious enough for you.**_

 _ **Deadliestfan, take a look. Your review helped me conceptualise how Serra would function in a place like this where she has to either use Azerothian magic or manipulate the latent magical energies of a battlefield.**_

 _ **Akashic Records, sure ;)**_


	35. Chapter 35

**Rearmament**

* * *

Caledra woke up and yawned. Stealthily, she crawled out of her bed and began to wear a set of robes over her nightdress. She had picked it herself. Whatever else Isiden Perenolde might be, he was certainly magnanimous with the people who had helped him retake his ancestral lands. Or maybe that simply had to do with the fact that his men were untested levies and there was a small army of mercenaries outside his castle. Now she waited in the darkness of her room, waiting for the sun to come up.

The stay of the Ogres had not been kind to the city. In truth, even at it's height, Alterac had been a poor kingdom in comparison to Lordaeron and Stormwind. Now, at it's nadir, the Castle felt haunted. On her first night in the room, Caledra had drifted off into a fitful slumber, covered in some of the less disgusting furs stored in the treasure vaults. Her bed was hard, the mattress feeling like it was made of wood. Thankfully, the castle was not haunted. Being tormented by ghosts was not something she was looking forward to.

Morning had made her realise that there were not any curtains on the windows of her room. They were all so threadbare that they did not keep the light of the sun outside. She wondered if the seamstresses who were working in the city marketplace would have them ready.

Despite the sorry state of the capital, the people of Alterac had gone about cleaning the city with gusto. Piles of rubbish had been heaped outside the walls and away from view. Doors that had been boarded up for years had been pried open and now there was the homely smell of smoke coming out of Chimneys. The mercenaries had been at the forefront of this abrupt property acquisition. Half the houses around Market Row were now 'owned' by the mercenaries. Their riotous behaviour had led to official protests from King Perenolde. Eventually, a compromise had been reached. Erich would police his men if they were allowed to keep the houses. The mercenaries were pacified as they suddenly had ostensibly expensive houses to live in. The fact that the buildings were worthless kept the King and his advisers happy.

She hadn't seen much of Erich since then. He had been given a stately office to work in. Furious at the poor showing of the routing soldiers, he had been hard at work drilling them. It was a surprisingly brutal regimen. They would be assembled at the castle's courtyard at launch – a hundred men at a time, before they began to run through the entire city while a drummer beat a tattoo. Tired and bedraggled by the time the sun was high in the sky, the men would then begin their drills. Caledra felt bad for them. Even the Farstriders would have balked at the physical stress that the humans were being put under.

Right now, she was enjoying a bottle of port that had been liberated from the Ogres. She enjoyed the dry red wine, and a day of not looking after Erich. He was safe as anyone could be in the confines of the city. Alterac City was half the size of Stormwind, and far more fortified. Isiden Perenolde had put men and women to work repairing the great gates and keeping sentries on the Tower. The Ogres had – unsurprisingly – kept full larders. It was Talaena who had discovered them. She had come with everyone else in the town of Strahnbrad. While they had spent a lot of time fortifying the Town, given the chance of staying behind the still strong walls of their capital, they had all taken it.

In her time with the Horde, Talaena had seen the behaviour of ogres. From what Caledra had heard from reports, the Horde had an allied clan of Ogres in Dustwallow Marsh, a few days away from Theramore itself. She had volunteered to lead a search for food supplies that the Ogres might have kept. With Caledra and a pair of Sentinels, they had gone to explore the dungeons. The brutish creatures had knocked a hole in the walls of the dungeon and in a cold and smoked roome, she had discovered a gruesome sight.

Ogres did not need dungeons. After all, prisoners were fresh meat to be turned into food sooner or later. The dungeon had been converted into a pantry. Rows upon rows of bodies, all skinned and smoked hung from chains and meathooks. A lot of those were the local yeti – simple furred creatures whose hides fetched a handsome price at the Stormwind Auction Houses. Some of the others were far grislier. Humans – men, women and children alike – had all been skinned and smoked, and hanged like pigs on stakes or kept in chains. Even the Sentinels, warriors who had fought for ten thousand years were shaken as they saw the foodstores.

Thankfully there were plenty of mountain goats and wolves that were just as well prepared. She had heard that the ogre chieftain that had kept his warband of ogres together with great cunning. It seemed that preserving food for bad days and using a dark and hidden part of the castle as a storeroom was certainly one way to keep the loyalty of his ogres. According to Talaena, Ogres, both on Azeroth and Outland were largely simple creatures that only thought of their next meal. Having the foresight to prepare meals and store them for winter made Mug'thol an uncommonly intelligent ogre. With the brute strength of his kind and a high level of cunning, it was not surprising that he had managed to thrive in the wintry and rocky landscape of Alterac for so many years. Caledra realised that it was he, not the humans who had ruled Alterac for all these years. The humans had been their cattle, just like the yetis and goats.

At least now he was dead. The Sentinels had removed the human bodies and after a short prayer led by Druid Moonclaw and Lady Swiftarrow, they had burned the bodies to a crisp. The smell now haunted her dreams. It would have been one thing if it had smelled revolting. However, the ogres had preserved the corpses well. When the bodies were cremated, they smelled just like pork. Caledra doubted that she would eat pig any time soon.

Today, she had a meeting with the King at Noon. Druid Moonclaw was finally about to leave for Stormwind, carrying with him a letter from Perenolde, declaring himself as the new ruler of the reborn kingdom of Alterac, and a request to formally join the Alliance. She was going to attest to the letter. Isiden Perenolde was not taking any chances. He knew that no matter how high Alterac's banner rose from the walls of his capital, his kingdom was a step away from collapse. His only fighters were a bunch of mercenaries that were going to march north once the snows had fully melted and his treasury – or what remained of it – was being rapidly drained by rebuilding his capital. If his kingdom was to have any future, it would have to open trade with Ironforge and Stormwind.

It was why Caledra, Lady Swiftarrow and Druid Moonclaw had been given any luxury they wanted. The two night elves were faintly amused by the gifts given to them by the new King of Alterac. They had lived and fought for ten thousand years. A few human trinkets were not even worthy of the space in their bags. Lady Swiftarrow had told Caledra that much as the three of them sat down to dinner in what was once a stately ballroom. Time, neglect and ogres had ravaged the place. The marble floors were cracked with heavy footsteps. The walls and columns, once pearly white and lilac had turned into mottled green and brown, and the musician's balcony was now home to the three of them enjoying a quiet repast.

Lady Swiftarrow had taken a look over the ruined state of most of the room before saying, "This place reminds me of Feralas."

"Why is that?" Caledra had asked.

"Eldre'thalas was overrun by the Ogres in the years after the burning legion was defeated. A ruined city, nature took back what the Kal'dorei had built in the days of our greatest glory. It is much the same here." She said, taking a sip of her port.

"You forgive their transgressions with the Alliance?"

"Do not mistake understanding with forgiveness, captain. The people of this nation betrayed their brothers in arms so that they could survive at the mercies of the Horde. What was visited upon them was their own doing. I was simply saying that this place reminds me of Eldre'thalas."

"I see. How do you like it here?" Caledra asked, wanting to discuss something else other than dead cities. It reminded her of Silvermoon and the fall of the Quel'Dorei.

"The food is mediocre, but the wine here is something else, don't you agree dearest?" She replied.

Druid Moonclaw meanwhile seemed to have taken to Alterac Port. He drank it during breakfast, lunch and dinner in ever-so-slightly increasing amounts.

"Why yes. It reminds me of fermented Moonberry juice. It is hard to believe that humans could make something this good. Surely the people of Alterac cannot be all bad." He chortled heartily. Isiden Perenolde had personally gifted him a crate of old wines from his cellar as a way to garner favour with him.

"So, when are you leaving for Stormwind?" Caledra asked the venerable druid.

"This afternoon. I enjoy flying at night. The calm of the seas and the sight of the sun rising over the clouds at the end of a hard night's journey sends my heart soaring."

"Yes, just don't drink before you start flying. I would to pick up my bird brained love stuck somewhere in a muck pile in the wetlands."

Caledra observed as the two night elves argued with each other like an old couple. _They are and old Couple_ , she thought. The two of them beings that had lived for ten thousand years and fought during the War of Ancients. For all intents and purposes, time had lost all meaning to them. They lived currently in the present, enjoying each other's company and bickering over the smallest of things. All the same, it seemed more like banter. They clearly relished each other's company and Caledra could sense they would move heaven and earth if the other was in danger. It was as different from the steamy romance novels that were popular in Stormwind as night was from day. Those books were however written for a human audience. A race of people that lived short lives. It was not for them to understand the slow and long burning passion of elves. Their spark would burn out as they aged.

When their repast was complete, they went their different ways. Lady Swiftarrow had taken the task of patrolling the city at night. It meant that she would spend most of the day sleeping or spending time with her lover.

Caledra meanwhile had the unenviable task of standing over the King. Rebuilding a kingdom was a hard task. The man needed every bit of help he could get. His treasury would not last too long at this rate, even after hoards of gold had been found, not excreted over by the Ogres. Some of it went to pay of the mercenaries. Much of it was used to repair the city. Even now the two dwarfs were leading teams of humans into the mines that had been shut, hoping to start them. There were supposed to be rich iron seams in Alterac according to the reports of the Stormpike clan. The dwarfs had taken it upon themselves to find it.

Isiden Perenolde had agreed. Iron and Steel would go a long way in rebuilding his kingdom. Hopeful of finding a way to find valuable goods to trade, he had authorised the dwarfs to prospect in the mines under his royal authority. Truth be told, the two blacksmiths did not need it. With the number of people he had, Caledra was sure that he would not be able to police the mines. Still, the more people thought that their king was in command, the better it would be.

Today she was to help him allot land to the different petty nobles that had managed to survive both the tender mercies of the Ogres and managed to stay loyal to him. It was not a task he relished. Caledra knew that her presence there would be helpful. After all, she was a neutral party and an official of the Alliance. If done under her auspices, it would at least stop the grumbling. As far as she knew a dozen different lordlings wanted their share of Alterac's lands.

When she opened the door to the King's study, she was surprised to see that none of them were present. The only man present, apart from the guards that wore ill fitting ornate suits of plate armour was the king. He sat in his study and pensively looked outside. The crown, made of beaten old gold was on his desk. She curtsied but he simply waved his hands, seemingly irritated at the action.

"Please don't do that." He said in fluent Thalassian.

Caledra raised an eyebrow. Ever since the troll wars, it has been an custom of human nobility to teach their children Thalassian. The richer noble families preferred sending for tutors from dalaran, or sometimes Quel'Thalas itself. Still, it felt jarring listening to a human speak in her language in this place. Thalassian was meant for the spires of Silvermoon, the streets of Dalaran or the court of Stormwind.

"I beg your forgiveness, your majesty. I did not mean to cause offense."

Isiden simply snorted at that. "Tell me Captain Dawnbreeze, how _majestic_ do you find my realm?" When she did not answer, he continued. "Erich is probably right. This entire business about rebuilding Alterac is an exercise in futility."

Caledra cursed inwardly. The mercenary was brusque and often bordered on the tactless, but telling a man who had regained his homeland that it was all futile bordered on sadistic. She simply asked, "Erich is a fool. What did he say to you?"

He massaged his temple with his hand before running a finger around the crown – a slender circlet made of Truesilver and gold. "Let me explain." The king eventually said. "A horseman came here last night, wanting to meet with me. He said that it was imperative that he meet with the king. Seeing as my chamberlain was drunk, it fell to me to listen to this message. I realised then who the figure was.

When Alterac fell, it was a surprise to every human kingdom. Ever since our kingdoms had been founded, they had coexisted with each other. All of our royal houses were bound to each other by marriage. After the war, it was decided by the Alliance that My uncle and his direct descendants had lost the right to rule the kingdom. Lordaeron wanted to put a distant nobleman, married to Terenas' daughter of course. Gilneas put my name forward. I had been hiding there since the war ended.

Menethil and Greymane both wanted their puppet on the throne. When Prestor disappeared,angry at the fact that his strumpet of a daughter would not get to be queen, Terenas annexed my kingdom to his own. I was allowed to live on the sufferance of Greymane for a few years but my usefulness to his schemes was run out. When the Greymane wall began to be built, I was given a horse and told to leave.

The rider who came in here today was one of the noble families of Gilneas. His name is Darius Crowley. He came to me with a proposition. His King had abandoned Gilneas, first by building the Greymane Wall, and secondly by running away to Kalimdor with his tail tucked between his legs. The Alliance has taken control of Crowley's ancestral land. The commanding officer told him that on the orders of both Varian Wrynn and Genn Greymane, his lands had been appropriated by the Alliance to build a new defensive position to contain the Horde threat."

"What did Crowley want from you?" Caledra asked in common. She felt slightly offended by the fact that Thalassian was being spoken in a broken down human castle.

"He and his people want a place to stay. They say that much like Alterac, they have lost their homes and now someone else occupies the land they grew up in. He asks that I, as the king of Alterac take him and his people in as his people helped me in my hour of need." He replied.

"What do you think?"

"I do not think that is a good idea. He has seven thousand families men, women and children with him. I would not want to be outnumbered in my own kingdom." He seemed unconvinced.

"And What did Erich say to you?"

"I said that his kingdom is one gentle push over the precipice. Seven thousand people are just the thing he needs to strengthen Alterac." Erich strode into the room like he owned it. He wore his ostentatious tights and a large codpiece that could not help but draw Caledra's eyes to his loins. A long coat made of yeti fur covered most of his body, useful for both keeping out the cold and bulking up his lean frame. To complete his outlandish costume he wore his large hat with a bizarre assortment of feathers.

"That is no way to speak to a king." Caledra replied. Erich might be right about it, but humans as a whole were touchy about authority.

Perenolde himself held up a hand. "Captain, please. Do you have what I asked of you Captain Erich?"

Erich reached in his coat and brought out several sheaves of paper. "I took the liberty of marking them in ascending order, _your highness._ " The way he said that made Isiden flinch.

"Thank you. I will have them printed as soon as I am able to."

"You do not have any person who can work on the printing machines. Crowley does." Erich snapped back.

"He was also instrumental in dividing up Alterac and driving me out of Alterac." Isiden countered.

Erich simply sighed before continuing. "Your people are going to die here if you keep being stubborn. Look at your capital, your highness. Your people are squatting here, afraid of the dark shadows in their own homeland. You need people. Darius Crowley needs land. He has craftsmen and farmers with him. People that will come in handy once the snows melt. You cannot even mine the iron and coal seams in your land unless you have people willing to go into the mines."

"I will not allow my people to become strangers in their own land, giving shelter to those that were content with casting us I do what you say, Alterac will forever be changed. Our ancient heritage over the last few millennia will scatter to the winds. This is an ill choice for any king to make."

Erich went down to one knee and grasped the king's left hand with his right. With his other hand he swept his hat off his head. His dark, closely cropped hair glistened in the yellow flame of the braziers. Isiden was surprised by this gesture. As for Caledra, she was dumbstruck by this gesture. Apart from his clumsy drunken attempts to flirt with her occasionally, Erich had maintained the air and composure of a cold and distant person. Even in the midst of battle he was a singular point of calmness in a maelstrom of violence. To see him make a gesture so impassioned and so suddenly put her off guard.

"Your Highness. Your kingdom is on the verge of dying out. Look to your capital, the seat of your royal ancestors. The dark and shuttered windows outnumber the ones with light in them. Your patrimony is spiralling towards it's death. This is not the time for impassioned remembrances for halcyon days of glory. If you cast your fellow people in need out, know that you will always be remembered as the last king of Alterac.

When the time comes, we do not have the opportunity to ignore the problems that face us. We must rise to the occasion and face them head on. This is the burden that being a leader places on us. Mine is easier than yours since I am but a simple mercenary leader. It falls to you to choose how your realm lives on, your majesty. You may slowly watch it wither away into nothingness with the years while the vultures circle overhead, waiting for your to die. Or you can be the man who ushers in a change for your dying land, so that it may grow and prosper once more."

After listening to Erich's monologue, Perenolde was silent. Caledra realised that he was considering this matter in a new light. It had never occurred to the new king that his land, ravaged by war was on the verge of being subsumed entirely by either the Forsaken or Stormwind.

"And what will become of my people once they are outnumbered in their own land? We saw what happened the last time the Alliance marched into Alterac. How can you convince me that these Gilneans will not be hanging my head from a spear by the end of the week?" He asked.

"Ask for an oath of loyalty. Make Crowley your chief advisor, give him vast swathes of land that make your more jealous nobles target him instead of you. It matters not. Your kingdom as it stands is on the verge of dissolving – whether from civil war or desertion. Make sure that every Gilnean serves in a similar capacity to every man of Alterac. When they shed their blood on the same side of the battlefield, they will realise how petty their differences are in the grander scheme of things." Erich declared. Then he slowly withdrew his hand.

"Do you require something of me Your Majesty?" he asked after retreating to a polite distance.

"I want your personal assurance that this rosy picture of the future that you have painted for me comes to fruition. Like you say, you are a mercenary. Your kind loves gold. If you truly care for my people, you will give me all the money in your possession. I shall use it, along with the tithes from both Alterac yeoman and Gilnean peasant to rebuild my home."

Erich grimaced and his hand went down to his belt. For a moment Caledra wondered if he was going to draw out his pistol. Instead, he held a coin purse, jingling in his hands. "That money is not mine to give. It belongs to my men. Unless you want your capital to die a swift death by angry tilean and imperial steel, you will never raise anything regarding payment from my company coffers." His hands clutched the bag even more firmly.

"This on the other hand contains all the money I have earned in these lands, minus some sundry expenses. Take it." Erich tossed the bag of coin at the table. It made a metallic sound.

"I wish you good luck, _your majesty_. You might need it. After all, no one likes a king that haggles like a fishmonger's wife."

And with that singular parting, Erich was gone.

Isiden slowly held the coin purse and opened it's strings. When he overturned it, over small shower of golden coins fell to the table. They glittered merrily in the light of the braziers, reflecting their dull flames tenfold. It was worth a small fortune. Enough to buy a house in Stormwind's canal district at the least.

Isiden threw the now empty coin purse away and began to write a something with his quill. Caledra, seeing that she was not needed any more, bent down and picked up the empty bag. It was tiny badly made of sackcloth. At a glance, it seemed that it was something to store potatoes or apples in, not a small fortune in Alliance Gold. Then she saw it.

A small emblem had been painted on it's side It was a yellow sun, with a black spear in the centre. In the bottom, something was written in Reikspiel. It simply stated.

 _Just as the night cannot drive away the sun's embrace,_

 _the brutality of the greenskin hordes, cannot drive away Solland's memory_

 _It lives on in the glens and the fields,_

 _and in the hearts of those that still stand proud_

 _welcoming the sun's rise._

She quickly curtsied and left the room, following Erich. It seemed that he would want it back before long.

* * *

Talaena felt exhausted. It had nothing to do with her work. In fact, she had not been working at all since she had come to Alterac over two weeks ago. She detested the place. The natural beauty was picturesque, of course, but the capital itself was a pile of rubble masquerading as a city. She knew it would get worse once the snows began to melt. The half paved roads would turn to mud and the city, now being filled with tens of thousands would begin to smell bad.

Now, she was in a room with a dozen other people. A few of them she recognized. There was the mercenary commander, cold and formal as he could be. Erich Von Peiper was his name. She noticed that he spoke with a curious accent, always referring to the word Von like 'fon'. Despite it's strangeness he was articulate and well spoken enough. If nothing else it showed that her aunt was an excellent tutor.

The other person that caught her attention was the golden haired and green eyed second in command – Luigi. Unlike his mentor, he did not seem to have a last name. Also, where Erich Von Peiper was as cold and unyielding as the mana forges of Netherstorm, Luigi was like the sun soaked grasslands of Mulgore. He smiled and laughed far more often, was kind, considerate, and above all an equal to Von Peiper in analysing a situation. It had been his idea of letting her go free instead of being kept under guard until she could be sent to the dreaded Stormwind Stockades. When she smiled at him, he returned the gesture.

Her aunt was there of course. Apart from Talaena herself, she was the only other elf in the room. The Night Elves were most notably absent. She noted the hawkish looking old man with the bald head who had a habit of falling asleep at the most inopportune moments. The others were the gnome engineer, a pair of dwarf blacksmiths she had seen in Strahnbrad and a some humans. She wondered why they were all here.

Erich spoke first. "I hope you have read a copy of the manual that was printed recently?"

Almost immediately one of the humans, a young woman spoke up. "Yes, I have a few questions. For instance, how are we going to elect the platoon leaders and sergeants? And what is this thing about new colours? " Talaena noticed that she wore leather and chainmail with a tabard of the Gilnean

Erich simply rolled his eyes. "And who are you?"

The woman simply smiled. "You have met and fought with my father Altgraf. Or have you forgotten him?"

"Why is Darius Crowley sending his daughter to my council for new officers?"

"Because I am my father's heir. You might as well ask why Pendleton and Bradbury are here as well." Two humans sheepishly waved at Erich's furious visage.

"Yes, because they are men. You most certainly are not." He replied with a final air, as if that settled the matter.

Lorna Crowley however was not one to take the hint. "I am just as capable of swinging a sword and handling a blade as any man in this room. More than some others." She glared darkly at the two humans she had mentioned.

Erich Von Peiper was not one to give up just yet. "The training will be brutal. This isn't some knightly training regime where you swing your blade and build up your strength. There will be hours of marching through bad weather. You will have to stand at the forefront of battle through thick and thin, making sure your men follow your orders. The enemy will always target you first to crush the morale of your men. The pay will always be underwhelming and you will have to lead men that trust you to your death."

"I am prepared to do anything." She shot back. There was a rigid tightness in her body. Even after Erich's description of what she would be expected to do, Lorna Crowley did not waver.

Erich simply shrugged. "Very well. Just do not expect any preferential treatment."

He opened his mouth to say something when Crowley raised her hand again. "Sir, you haven't answered my question."

Erich rolled his eyes and flinched before he continuing. "As I was going to say, Platoon Sergeants will be chosen by each one of you from the groups of men to be commanded. Your men will be taught to march, fire their guns in massed volleys and keep a wall of pikes at the ready."

He pointed to Talaena. She felt every pair of eyes in the room turn to her. "This elf is Talaena Dawnbreeze. She along with Mister Wobblesprocket will be in charge of manufacturing our gunpowder and weaponry." He then pointed to the dwarfs. "These fine fellows have taken the initiative to work in the mines. A hundred craftsmen – skilled craftsmen will be assigned to each one of you. They will build guns, armour, spears and shields."

"And how many would you need?" Talaena asked. She braced herself for an outrageous number. It would be just like the bombastic nature of the human to ask her for something that was far flung and then threaten her to make it.

"Four thousand guns. Two Thousand Pikes."

Talaena's face must have shown the disbelief she felt quite clearly. Erich clenched his hand and Luigi got up and whispered something in his ears. The older man exhaled for a moment before saying, "Unless you think it is too much of course."

Wobblesprocket spoke up. "Depends on the craftsmen you get to work for us." He clambered up on the table, helped by Talaena before he began to walk on it's surface towards Erich. At this height both of them could see each other eye to eye. A flicker of humour appeared in both Erich and Luigi's eyes while Wobblesprocket was serious. "Listen Captain. I mean no offense. But you cannot work us like whipped dogs."

"What do you suggest."

"Better working hours, and at least two hundred craftsmen for us – each." He said, hand on his hips.

"Make your own working hours. Take as many people you want. I want my guns, and I want them delivered." Erich countered.

As it was they spent the next hour talking about weapons and armaments. Everyone pitched in the discussion. Except Talaena. She felt annoyed at this entire farce. The human was asking for progressively worse terms. He did not even stop to consider that it would be physically impossible for the two of them to actually work on making those percussive mechanisms. In the end it was determined that four thousand guns in a week was impossible to do. Instead it would be a thousand guns in a week. Meanwhile Erich would drill his new recruits and build cohesion amongst them while the weapons were being manufactured. The estimated time would be two weeks to a month.

When a large number of other matters were discussed, Talaena began to feel bored. To pass the time she picked up a small booklet that Crowley had left on the table. It was rather thick for a regular pamphlet. Ten pages of instructions on how to keep soldiers in line, how to march and how to form up while firing. It was perhaps just as mind numbing. This human was stupider than he thought he was. Why would a warrior need to march in the midst of a battle. Everyone knew that the heavily armoured or the fastest warriors went ahead to the front while mages and archers shot at their foe from a safe distance. There was also the matter of firing volleys of shot instead of taking careful aim with marksmen. This was an entire exercise in absurdity. Sooner of later Sylvanas would return to crush them. The defeat at Pyrewood had been a fluke.

A cold sweat broke upon her brow. She was now making weapons for a madman.

* * *

 _ **A/N When I started writing this, I had not expected the awesome response I would get. Thanks guys. Reading your reviews makes me happy. I hope you feel a similar level of happiness when you read the yarn I am spinning.**_

 _ **Lord Jaraxxus, I will try and write both. After all, their stories will link up at some point.**_

 _ **Machcia, yeah. I did not do a raid by raid fight. Would have driven me insane.**_

 _ **DIOS de la nada. It is more like poking someone in the eye with a stick and when he tries to defend himself you kick him in the fun bits with all your might.**_

 _ **Solland Peasant, thank you.**_

 _ **guest, well warhammer doesn't have continent shattering spells half regularly. Warcraft makes up for it though. The world is imperilled in every raid patch.**_

 _ **Joan, thanks!**_

 _ **deadliestfan, there are several things I want to address. Firstly Serra is managing to cast basic arcane spells after a lot of effort. Her skill in magic depends upon the fact that she can manipulate and "cleanse" the latent magical power left on the field of battle because it is basically what high elf wizards do in warhammer when they use High Magic. I tried keeping a scholastic approach for her, since the High Elf mages are basically scientists in terms of what they do with magic.**_

 _ **Secondly regarding your question about Sylvanas' benefits. Do not worry. Sooner or later, the mercs will have to deal with the fact that they do not have air superiority and are dealing with chemical weapons that are basically a god mode cheat in the lore. It is something tricky and will require a lot of thinking to use without turning into a 4saken curbstomp.**_

 _ **Thirdly, regarding tactics, technology and all that stuff. Blizzard does not even care to maintain any semblance of consistency in their world. The devs read something cool in a comic book or see it in a movie and then they implement it in WoW, with the consequences being damned. Take the example of the Airships and the cannons that fire about as fast as a m777. The recoil from something like those weapons would have serious problems in stabilising the flight of the Alliance airships. The same thing exists with technology. On one hand, tech advances so fast that it is basically magic at the point. At the same time the Alliance doesn't ever have logistical issues in maintaining a fleet arm of airships. It is the same thing with tactics. The WoW BFA trailer was cool - in a way that the Hobbit movies' tactics were cool. They looked extremely flashy and accomplished little of value. A line of dwarf handgunners firing from behind a human shield wall looks extremely cool and awesome. A better siege would be maintained by moving cannons within range of Lordaeron's towers and blowing them to smithereens. Like you mentioned, the Alliance at the least has breech loading cannons and maybe even auto loaders. It doesn't take too much for them to use a dedicated siege weapon to batter down the walls instead of charging straight at it.**_

 _ **I agree that WoW generally has a higher level of Tech than Warhammer, and I am going to try and implement it in later chapters, but in a way that does not completely break the story. Which means that sadly the mercs won't get those chainswords and guns that gnomeregan guards use.**_

 _ **Acobracadabra, well, you better get started on it. I expect more reviews in the future.**_

 _ **Kingly Crimson, thank you.**_


	36. Chapter 36

**New Alliances**

* * *

Dawn crept over Stormwind, bringing a tired grunt of relief from the guards who had been saddled with the much unpopular night patrolling duty. The kingdom of Stormwind might be at war, but no one preferred to stay up at night. The guardsmen themselves began to walk back to the barracks in the old town, looking to get some rest before the big celebrations of the day. In their haste to get off duty, they did not notice the hooded and cloaked figure that stealthily scouted the battlements of the inner defenses.

Matthias Shaw did not need sleep. Not today. The guards were doing what was asked of them. Their patrol routes were unknown to even him. They had stepped up their game. If he could not infiltrate into the city unannounced, a horde raiding party would have no chance of sneaking in without being challenged. An all out war often brought a different manner of securing the city's defences. Just last week, a horde adventuring party had tried to attack the city. They had somehow managed to fight their way all the way to Stormwind Keep itself, killing all in their way. They had fallen in the outer courtyard after being surrounded and cut off. Ever since then, SI:7 had been working over time to bolster the city's intelligence network. Reznak had been deployed to Ratchet, where he would infiltrate the city's ranks and send messages whenever he could.

Today was a different challenge. A week ago, all of the Dragon Aspects had blessed Stormwind with their August personages. Deathwing had been defeated, and the world itself now breathed a sigh of relief. The champions of the Alliance and the Horde had done the impossible. They had broken the corrupted earthwarder that had caused the Cataclysm. Dignitaries from all corners of the world, from Tyrande Whisperwind to Gelbin Mekkatorque were all staying in stately rooms at the Stormwind Keep waiting for the champions to arrive.

And they would be arriving today. The ships had docked at Menethil Harbour to take on further supplies. The council of the Three Hammers had sent an envoy through the deeprun tram as soon as the ship had set off. Never since the fall of Arthas had the city gathered to celebrate it's heroes. They might be at war, but that did not mean that their heroes were banqueted and honoured. It was his job to make sure that some angry fellow with delusions of justice did not attempt to assassinate some noble. Prince Anduin had nearly been killed by the Twilight's Hammer when he had been touring the destruction of the city. This would never happen again under his watch.

As the dawn turned into morning, the sounds of thousands of footsteps reached the Spymaster's ears. The honour guard was leaving the barracks. On this most glorious of days, it made sense for the best of the Stormwind to escort the Alliance to the keep. He knew the plan of the parade of course – he had helped to design it. The Knights of Stormwind would escort the heroes and champions through the harbour and throughout the length of the canals, marching at a slow and stately pace. Crowds of tens of thousands of city-dwellers were expected. Deathwing had irrevocably changed the face of Azeroth, and he had struck Stormwind the hardest. The Park, a symbol of what Stormwind could be was now part of the great sea. Thousands of lives had been lost in the monster's rampage. He had taken the skull of Onyxia and flown away, leaving a land scarred. Now it was his elementium Jaw that was hung in the place of honour. The Dragon Aspects had left as a trophy for the Alliance.

Civilians began to turn up. They kept a respectful distance from the guard. The ornate armour and freshly washed lion's head tabard commanded awe. When the King's own guard appeared, it meant that rare guests were coming to Stormwind. Word of their appearance would spread like wildfire. It was to be expected of course. Workmen in the pay of the House of Nobles were planting banners like farmers planted crops. The desire for secrecy in welcoming those heroes now conspired to create a fever pitch of excitement. Stormwind's citizens knew of course that Deathwing was dead. It would take the most brutish of Westfall peasants to not realise that the Honour Guard was not deployed for trifling guests. He wondered if there would be a riot. There almost had been one when the news had come that Garrick's army had lost half it's number in the fight against the Forsaken advance. The kingdom mourned for it's dead sons and daughters, and any chance to break out of the sad reverie was welcomed by most people. As it was, they would celebrate and cheer for the heroes until they were half blind from drunkenness. All the while the kingdom bled slowly and steadily during the war.

Westfall was still raw from Vanessa's coup. She had been defeated, but her mere presence had shown that there was still kindling for a major revolt against the Wrynns even in the heart of the Kingdom. Men and women were being conscripted from Redridge and Westfall even now to fill out the ranks of the Alliance armies for the war war was not even close to being won. The Hzorde still tenaciously fought wherever they could, inflicting crippling losses at times to the Alliance before being driven back. With the aid of the Bilgewater Cartel the Horde had created a naval power base in the dry lands of Orgrimmar that still challenged Theramore and the Night Elves. The Blood Elves and the Forsaken still used their considerable naval assets to harass Alliance convoys that shipped troops and supplies from Menethil Harbour and Southshore to Kalimdor. Ashenvale was ravaged, and Azshara itself had been turned into an ugly symbol of the horde, much to the horror of the Night Elves.

Matthias' train of thought was interrupted by the laughter coming from the canals. In his reverie, he had crossed all the way from the front gates of Stormwind, through the busy streets of the market and into the segment of the canals that separated the mages district and the port from the rest of the city. He passed through several shops that sold odds and ends – several of them magical. Living in close proximity to aspiring mages and magic users meant that several of the young students would try to craft magical items to sell to the shops, who in turn would sell them to the tens of thousands of people who walked through the streets. Nearly all of these were harmless, mostly magical fireworks or children's wands that sparkled when shaken. Now, most of the shops were closed as the shop owners and their workers were already at the docks – part of the curious crowd of onlookers who were waiting for something spectacular to appear in the quay. Shaw knew that only one building would be completely occupied with it's denizens safely at their regular place. The stockades loomed in the distance, ominous even in the bright morning of the day. Some of the most dreaded criminals in the city were imprisoned there, along with a smattering of Horde prisoners awaiting their sentencing.

Chief amongst them was a forsaken assassin – the sole survivor of a dastardly horde raid that had managed to overwhelm the defenders and fightt it's way to the throne room. The Orc leading the charge had been cut down by Varian himself, and the rest were similarly killed off – with the exception of the forsaken. He had been captured alive – if it could be called that – and taken to the stockades to be interrogated. Eventually it turned out that they had tried to gain more favour with the warchief by presenting him with Varian's head. There was no way they were going to succeed of course. But even as Matthias watched the brazen assault did what it was actually meant to do. Confidence in the city guard nosedived amongst the general populace and much of the House of Nobles. If they could not even protect the king from a motley band of killers that fought all their way to the throne room, what good were they for. How badly was the war going that the horde could charge openly into Stormwind Keep, plant their banners and fight against the honour guard of the king for hours before being defeated. It smelled like Sylvanas Windrunner's handiwork.

In life, Sylvanas Windrunner had been one of the brightest minds of Quel'Thalas' military forces. As the Banshee Queen her power and her ruthlessness had grown hundredfold. She knew of course that killing Varian Wrynn in a manner like this was a long shot. But the fear and the panic that it would cause would damage the kingdom in a manner that would chip away at the morale of the Alliance bit by bit. This had shocked and cowed the Alliance battlemasters and generals. They would not admit it of course but they lived in fear of being next on the horde's hit list. Perhaps next time the adventurers of the horde would go for their heads instead of Varian Wrynn.

Every nervous twitch, every bead of sweat in the cool rooms of the councils of war had been analysed and noted. What Shaw had lacked in his mentor's raw intellectual capacity, he had made up for in meticulous note taking. His notes had spelled it out for him in a manner that would be easy for a child to understand. The Alliance was losing the war. While Deathwing had rampaged throughout the world, the war had taken an ugly turn. The alliance might have been victorious in Ashenvale, but that was an island of hope, receding in a dark and roiling sea of war. The Barrens had been lost. Lordaeron had been lost. Gilneas had been devastated before the forsaken had finally been put to flight. Theramore was the only place south of Ashenvale that was standing.

The only ray of hope north of the Thandol span now lay in the hands of strange mercenaries. It had been half a year since they had appeared on the wings of a large storm in the Great Sea. What the Alliance had struggled to do, they had done effortlessly. Always mindful of a trap, Matthias had thought that it was a ruse designed to lure in more Alliance forces that could be pinched off. Garrick's death had cemented his worst fears, only to learn that the forsaken had been crushed afterwards. This small piece of news, corroborated and verified had breathed new life into the plans of the Alliance. The fears of the Horde swarming in the Wetlands had been replaced by a sense of impending victory against Sylvanas. Gilneas had been reclaimed. The Alliance was now in place to push into Silverpine from Pyrewood Village. Even the failed attempt to take Andorhal had caused Sylvanas to lose one of her precious Val'kyr.

And almost just as suddenly it was now in danger of turning to ash. Under orders to take the war to the Forsaken, the mercenaries had camped in Alterac for the winter. Not content with just gathering supplies for a push into Lordaeron itself, Erich Von Peiper had taken the delusional and dangerous step of resurrecting the Kingdom of Alterac almost single-handedly. SI:7 had enough intelligence on the Syndicate to know that a splinter group of a few thousand refugees – too stubborn to leave their homes – were slowly being hunted down by the Crushridge ogres. To have made remade Alterac from a bunch of rag-tag peasants was alarming enough – but rearming and drilling them to fight in their strange and foreign manner was a threat to the alliance that needed to be deealt with.

Assassinating the mercenary was out of the question. Words of his exploits had been heard in the Keep for a while, but now they had begun to filter down to the rank and file. The loss of morale that had crept through the enlisted men since the war began had been turned around. The fact that Alliance forces – over half the forces that had participated in the battle of Pyrewood were Stormwind men and women – could fight with and defeat the Horde in a brutal pitched battle was heartening indeed. Even the battlemasters and generals of the Alliance were increasingly placing the mercenaries at the centre of their plans. After all, dead mercenaries did not need to get paid.

The night elf who acted as emissary to Isiden Perenolde was now safely in the city, awaiting a response. Much to Matthias' surprise, Varian Wrynn kept his cards close to his chest, ignoring the more conservative elements of his council. If the message had been delivered a year prior, there was no doubt in Shaw's mind that the High King of the Alliance would have torn the message, sent the might of Stormwind up through the mountain passes of Alterac and taken over the land in it's entirety and arrested Isiden Perenolde. Something had changed in him during the battle for Ashenvale. He had gone hot headed and full of anger, only to return as a statesman. Even now he considered the implications of Alterac rejoining the Alliance. It was as if he was a different man from the angry king who had almost vetoed the Gilneans from joining the Alliance when the forsaken had pushed into Gilneas. Now it seemed that Alterac was planning on doing the same.

The fledgling kingdom had long been the weakest link in the second war, eventually turning traitor when Lordaeron itself was threatened by the horde. In the aftermath, the land had been taken over by Lordaeron when the claimants to the throne had disappeared. In time the human kingdoms would learn – to their shock and horror – that the Prestors had been infiltrated by Deathwing to wreak havoc in the aftermath of the conflict. There was no love lost for Alterac amongst the people of Stormwind. They had sold their own kind out for the orcs. At the same time, the situation in the eastern kingdoms had changed considerably since those days. Lordaeron, the bulwark of the Alliance was dead and gone over to the Horde. Stromgarde was almost as bad as alterac. The capital city was being fought over by the remainder of the Arathor league, the witherbark troll tribes and bands of ogres while the Horde extended their dominions from their fortified encampment at the former interment camp.

It was true that they needed allies, and the mines and mountains of Alterac were an excellent place to keep the war against the horde going. At the same time the inherent untrustworthiness was always an issue. There was no hard evidence that when the axe of the horde fell upon the mountain nation, Alterac would stand firm as a member of the Alliance.

By this time Matthias had reached the Stormwind harbour. Even as the household guard secured the main causeway into the city, hundreds of curious onlookers began to stream in. The Alliance banners were hung on every crevice and battlement, as a result the bleached walls of the seaward walls were seemed to be draped in a sea of blue and gold. It was a heart warming sight. One could almost be fooled into thinking that the Horde had been ground into the dust.

"Ah, there you are Mister Shaw. It has been a while since we met face to face." A familiar voice spoke up next to his ear. A mixture of alarm and joy filled Matthias' mind for one moment. Another cloaked and hooded figure was standing next to him. He did not need to turn around to see the short blond hair that would be well hidden under the burlap.

"Your highness, you should not be here. Your royal father will doubtless prefer that you stay within the Keep to receive the champions." He said to the young prince of Stormwind.

For his part Anduin Wrynn simply shrugged. "Yes, I know he would. Ever since the cataclysm, I haven't had too much of a chance to go off on my own. I will be returning to Velen at the Exodar soon." He fidgeted a little before continuing. " Father is busy directing the course of the war. It is not often that all the leaders of the Alliance come together under one roof."

Matthias nodded. "Indeed. Let us hope that this day is the first on the road to victory." He was not convinced. For all he knew this war would drag on for years more, ruining Stormwind in the process.

"So, when will the champions be arriving? I wonder if I have seen a few of them before." Anduin remarked. As if in reply to the young prince, the bell in the lighthouse began to toll, announcing the arrival of a new ship. Thousands of people turned their heads to look at the horizon, eager to spot the ships. Matthias checked his pocket watch. It was time.

As if on cue the shape of two cutters burst through the fog. Trailing them was one of the ships that the Alliance used for transporting troops to Northrend. It towered over the two cutters, leaving a trail of steam in the air, with it's golden eagle's prow jutting over the water, resplendent in the sun's light.

Even as the larger ship approached the quay, the two cutters retreated to a safe distance and fired their guns in a salute before returning to their patrol. There could be no doubt left in the most simple of minds. This was the ship that returned with the champions who had defeated Deathwing and saved the world. The roar from the assembled crowd was deafening as the ship docked. Several figures appeared from belowdecks. Matthias brought out a spyglass to see the hazy shapes with some clarity.

The captain of the ship, an older woman saluted at what seemed to be a heavily armoured human and Draenei even as the ship's crew moored the ship. Several other figures followed them. They seemed to be from every race that made up the alliance. He saw a dwarf priestess, a pair of night elven sentinels, a druid and what seemed to be a half elf, supported by a dark haired human mage. A gnome ran around the pair.

As they walked down the pier they were greeted by the cheers of the entire city. The sound rivalled the intensity with which the conquering heroes from Northrend had returned. What had transpired then had been a beacon of hope to the city for the Undead Scourge that had ravaged the world was dead, and there was a hope for peace on the horizon. Now, Deathwing was gone, but peace remained as fleeting as ever. Still, through valour and might, Azeroth had been saved. These heroes deserved no less.

Anduin also had a spyglass to his eyes, far more ornate and banded with old gold. Doubtless it had been a very expensive trinket granted to his father after the second war had been won. His young and handsome face wore a frown as he studied the heroes from afar. "I recognize Rhona and Meraan, but most of the faces are not so familiar to me."

Matthias took a second look with his spyglass. It was his job to find information of course. When the news of the victory had reached his ears, with his customary meticulousness, he had sought out every bit of information he could find about the heroes. Rhona and Meraan were siblings, four hundred years old and born in Karabor. They had risen through the alliance ranks during the assault on Quel'Danas isle, combining the power of both Light and the Elements. Ever since their record of meritorious services had grown exhaustingly long. It would be not surprising to know that Rhona would probably have led the group during the defence of Wyrmrest Temple.

"The plate armoured human is Sir Berthold. He is -"

"A Death Knight, I know. I remember him striding through the keep with the Highlord's missive in his hands." Anduin interrupted him softly. "It seems like yesterday, yet it was so long ago." The young prince looked troubled as he remembered that day. "Fordragon had just left the city then." Matthias was struck with Anduin's memory. Most people would have forgotten about the former minions of the Lich King, or remembered them with hostility. Not the prince. He was said to be unusually attuned to the Light, and under the tutelage of Prophet Velen, his mastery had grown. In all the crowd, he could understand what it meant to be completely cut off from the Light as the Death Knights were.

"The dwarf priestess is Aithwuda Forgebearer. She was inducted as a priest during the assault on the Dark Portal and was instrumental in foiling Arthas' attempts to plague Ironforge." Matthias continued his report. The prince might be soft spoken, but when his mind was set on something, he would do anything to accomplish it. If Anduin Wrynn wanted information, he would have it.

The prince simply nodded. "So many brave and valiant servants of the light. It humbles my heart to know that the Light reaches all, touches all of us even during our darkest moments."

"The two night elven sentinels are renowned warriors and huntresses." He had found their names unpronounceable, but their records spoke for themselves. Ten thousand years of warfare had turned them into fearsome killing machines. Those that saw them fight in denuded parts of Southern Ashenvale had begun to call them the Orcsbane twins. "They are the Orcsbane sisters, your highness."

"And what of those three over there?" Anduin asked pointing to the half-elf, the human the gnome who seemed to be walking apace with each other.

"The human is Dana Morris. She is a mage of no little skill, after studying the arcane here, her teachers recommended her to study in Dalaran. She earned her spurs after the Wrathgate incident when we had to send for extra volunteers."

For once Anduin Wrynn did not reply. His eyes were downcast. No doubt memories of Bolvar Fordragon had stirred up inside the Prince. He had been like a second father to Anduin, one that he had increasingly turned to when Varian Wrynn had gone missing. He had taken the news of the Lord Protector's fall with stately grace, but the guards had heard him cry wretchedly in the confines of his room when he was alone.

Neither one of them said much for a while before Anduin fidgeted. When he spoke it seemed that he was struggling through tears. "Who are the other two? I mean the gnome and the half-elf."

"Dana was supposed to have a gnome apprentice as part of her duties as a fully fledged mage in debt to the Kirin Tor. I presume that is her."

"And the Half-Elf?"

"I do not, your majesty. The most I could find about her was that she stayed at the same room as Dana and her apprentice in the Howling Fjords."

Anduin smiled. "It would seem that you cannot find out everything, Master Shaw."

Matthias chuckled. It was true. His efficiency about finding hidden nuggets of information was something that was relied upon by a lot of people. Part of him wanted to do better. This half-elf would be a start. She was a complete mystery to the leaders of the Alliance. Tyrande knew about the Orcsbane twins. A figure like Sir Berthold could not remain hidden. The elf on the other hand was a mystery to them all. The position of the Spymaster of Stormwind and his honour as one of Van Cleef's pupils demanded to know more.

"You should return to the keep, Your Highness. Otherwise the King will have my head."

Anduin smiled and waved as he ran away, mingling into the crowd with a practised ease that would not be amiss from a master spy. The future king of Stormwind certainly was a gifted individual.

After a few seconds, when he was satisfied that the SI:7 agents were at their designated positions in the burgeoning crowd, Matthias shaw left the alcove and began to make his way back to the Stormwind Barracks. He had work to do.

* * *

"There are so many people here!" Penny's wide eyed excitement was contagious. Serra barely held back a smile.

The gnome was right. There were certainly many people here. On the pier it had seemed there had been hundreds of people, barely held back by human guards had been cheering on their triumphal march. Serra knew that she would have to grin and bear it. This place was worlds away from Lothern – both figuratively and literally. Whereas the ancient Elven city was now a place of empty streets and ghosts, the human city of Stormwind was vibrant and full of life.

As they passed by each and every one of the human guards, they saluted smartly. Rhona took each and every one of their saluted with a smile and a blessing. Once or twice the sheer press of bodies broke through the thin plate armoured line. Men, women and children all crowded along the heroes and for one terrifying and exhilarating moment, Serra, along with the rest of the party lifted into the air by hundreds of pairs of hands. The celebration was not limited to the humans around them. At a distance, near what seemed to be a small citadel by the canals, couples danced in the street, music – all out of tune and discordant to her finely tuned Asur senses permeated the air. She had been part of The sounds and smells of what seemed like hundreds of thousands of humans assaulted her senses. It was too much.

Serra had been part of conquering armies before. For the Asur it had been a long, elegant and ponderous affair, taking place over several weeks as they marched slowly and in complete silence throughout the less abandoned thoroughfares of Lothern on the way to Finubar's court. The humans, short lived and lively as they were seemed to celebrate their arrival into the city with a gusto that was both vital and rude.

At one point, while she was being carried through the crowd, her eyes fell upon the canal. The somewhat dirty water of the city seemed revolting to her, with it's murky waters and stench. She crinkled her nose in disgust as she began to turn her head to look away. A large pale shape bobbed out of the dark water for a moment, and a pair of red reptilian eyed her as if she was a choice morsel. Serra shrieked and the humans carrying her dropped her. Her side exploded in pain.

Almost immediately, Dana and Rhona were there with concern writ large upon their faces. As the Draenei helped her up, Dana asked, "Serra, are you alright?" The humans formed a circle around her

"There is something in the water."

"Oh, the canals are full of crabs and other marine creatures. Some of them are even delicacies in the tavens of the Old Town." Dana replied as Serra dusted off her clothes.

"But this thing was gigantic, and seemed like an albino!"

Dana burst out laughing. "Oh, so you have seen the worst kept secret in Stormwind have you?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's the not-so-elusive Sewer Beast of Stormwind. Some noble's daughter wanted a pet so her father got her a croc from the wetlands. Cost a pretty penny too from what I hear. When it began to get too big and too savage, they flushed it down and pretended to have nothing to do with it. The City Guard pretends it doesn't exist while it swims along the canal eating crabs and whatever else it can get it's hands on."

"That sounds dangerous. I mean, what about the children?" Serra pointed to a gaggle of children, ranging from well to do ones to street urchins that seemed to be making a way for her coin purse. She swatted one older looking one's hand away from her rump who just grinned sheepishly before taking off.

Don't bother. It keeps the children well behaved. My sister tells her brats that the Sewer Beast will get them if they go swimming in the canals. It seems to work wonders." Dana seemed to be on the verge of bursting out into another set of guffaws yet again.

"You let your children get eaten by mutant monstrosities in the city?" Even in the most squalid settlements of the old world, people were known to take extreme measures to safeguard themselves from anything out of the ordinary. In contrast the people of Azeroth seemed laid back.

"Of course not silly! It is just that the sewers go for miles underneath the city so it is next to impossible to catch it. Besides, you should consider yourself lucky. Most people never see it on their first visit to Stormwind."

Serra was about to reply to that when a squad of guards broke through the crowd to reach them. The human, a short wiry haired youth saluted them with a mixture of respect and awe. Dana and Rhona responded in kind. "If the three of you would kindly follow me. We normally do not let honoured guests and heroes get manhandled by the mob."

The rest of the guards formed a circle around them shoving the assembled crowd out of the way while the three of them began to move back on the wide cobblestone paths and continue their march to the large Keep in the distance.

In comparison to Miragliano, the city of Stormwind looked far more ordered and well kept. Both the cities had canals, but that was where their similarities ended. Where the Tilean city was a maze of twisting alleyways and filled with shady characters, Stormwind was well ordered and filled with laughing and smiling people. The streets were broad and followed the canals almost perfectly. She saw what seemed like a cathedral in the distance, tall and white, shining in the morning. Dana simply said, "It is astounding isn't it? When the city was rebuilt, we built it grander than ever."

That explained it. The city of Stormwind seemed to have been rebuilt. It explained why the city seemed so tidy. Give it a hundred years and it would begin to build upon itself, ending up looking like a disgusting mess. Whatever else the humans of the old world might be, Serra knew they would fight to the bitter end to defend their homes. That was something worth respecting.

As the keep drew nearer, for a short while the air grew darker with soot and the smell of burning charcoal, quenching metal and sweat. It sounded like they were passing by the part of the city craftsmen worked in. What surprised Serra was the large presence of dwarfs in the crowd. She had seen small numbers of dwarfs, gnomes and Night Elves in the crowd before, along with the occasional draenei. Now in this part of the city, the dwarfs and gnomes handily outnumbered the humans in the crowd. Instead of proper dresses and clothes, most of the faces were grimy and full of soot, and blacksmith's aprons were distributed evenly throughout the crowd.

"What is this place?" She asked Dana.

Dana replied, "It is the dwarf district of the city. All our major forges and engineering workshops are located here. After the second war, the dwarfs were instrumental in helping rebuild Stormwind. So they built a temporary shelter for themselves as they continued to work on the city. After so many years, most of them elected to stay in the city. They say that there are more dwarfs in Stormwind than Ironforge."

"Fascinating." Was all Serra could say as dryly as possible.

"What? Do your kind not like dwarfs?" Dana asked her.

"You can say that." She replied. It would take hours to explain the complicated relations between the Asur and the dwarfs. The War of the Beard was a pointless conflict instigated by an overconfident and arrogant buffoon that had sat on the Phoenix Throne and a race of rigid and senseless bearded creatures that could not accept that they had made mistakes. Both the races had suffered immensely in the war that had thrown both their kingdoms into decline and paved the way for humans to rise.

"So how do the dwarfs travel from Ironforge to Stormwind. From the maps that I saw Wyrmrest, there are many hundreds of leagues between the two kingdoms?"

Dana smiled. "It is something the dwarfs built to help transport material. At the back of the Dwarf district is a tunnel that leads into the bowels of Azeroth. There they have a massive tunnel that links both the cities to the other. It takes a couple of days to traverse via tram instead of the months that it would normally take to march throughout the length of the continents."

"I see. The dwarfs in my world have a similar system, but they are loathe to share it with humans, despite the fact that they are closely allied with each other." Serra mused. It certainly was odd. The Empire treated dwarfs with reverence. It was a tenet of the Sigmarite faith. For their part, the elder race seemed to hold the humans in disdain second only to elves and orcs. Humans were disparaged for being long and shoddy. They were a source of gold for the greedy dwarfs and a meat shield for reclaiming their lost holds.

"That is rather strange. Well, here we are. Welcome to Stormwind Keep."

Up close the tower did really seem like a keep. It was at least four times as thick as the lighthouse they had passed through on the way to the harbour and taller than it by at least that amount. Several ancillary towers had been constructed on the higher tiers of the castle. Serra was reminded of the bretonnian city of Couronne almost irresistibly. The architecture of Stormwind would not look too out of place in the fields and meadows of Bretonnia. She wondered what the captain of the Bretonnian ship would think when he saw stormwind. A small pang of guilt hit her. He had probably been killed by those fish creatures they called murlocs. It had been her fault of course.

At the base of the keep, several impractically large stairs, polished to a gleaming white sheen and covered by a red carpet that seemed to be made of velvet. Serra had to smile. The bretonnian comparison was definitely apt. The dukes of that kingdom endeavoured to outdo each other in welcoming their elven hosts. The hostility of the peasantry was made up for the overly sweet and wheedling manner of their overlords. Stormwind, having the resources of an entire kingdom had scaled up the pomposity up to a gargantuan degree. The gold and blue banners every few yards was proof enough to her.

The soldiers were all mounted on large barded steeds. Each rider and his or her horse was a magnificent specimen of humanity's finest. Covered head to toe in plate armour that was as much fashion statement as it was battle armour, they posed an imposing figure. Large broadswords in scabbards and a lance with the pennant of Stormwind made up their offensive gear. The horses and riders stood still on the steps as statues. The entire procession was designed to intimidate as overawe.

For her part, Serra could barely hold back her laughter. The militia armies of Ulthuan would look far more spectacular in a parade, and would fight far more effectively on the battlefield. The White Lions that guarded Finubar were heroes amongst the Asur, and would be more than a match for heavily armoured knights with their Chracian axes. Centuries of drilling had turned the armies of the Phoenix king into some of the greatest mortal soldiers the world had ever seen. Even the tilean mercenaries and humans of the empire fought in a similar manner, using discipline and teamwork instead of individual valour and overly elaborate armour. She thought wistfully what her erstwhile employee and now employer Erich would think if he would see these stunning specimens of Stormwind's finest soldiers.

As they climbed up the steps, she noted that a bunch of figures at the top awaited them at the top of the stairs. From a distance, she could make out a night elven woman, regally dressed in garments of white that left her arms exposed, a human female standing by her side whose hair shone like gold in the sun. She wore robes of purple and white that left her midriff exposed. Both their bodies were extremely shapely, in entirely different ways.

A giant of a man stood next to them, wearing plate armour and carrying a massive and impractical sword that made the broadswords of the knights look like buttering knives. As they got closer, Serra noticed that a stern and not unhandsome face, brutally scarred by close combat framed by wild locks of hair that was dressed in a manner to unhinge a norscan made up the man. She did not need to know that this man was Varian Wrynn, the King of Stormwind. She had passed by enough statues and plaques commemorating the king to know the real person when she saw him.

At his side stood a young human, scarcely out of boyhood with short golden hair and dressed in regal clothes of blue, white and gold. There was a semblance of similarity between the two in how they held themselves. A mixture of casual disdain and military discipline that told that was common to rulers everywhere. This stripling must be the prince of Stormwind.

The last member was a female dwarf, who stood apart from the rest. She – like all her kind had long plaited hair that she tied in a pair of buns over her ears. A sable dress covered her body and gloves of a similar material covered her hand. A scowl to match her dress was on her face, and she looked darkly at the human king and his get. Nor was she the only one scowling. The dwarf priestess – generally so full of life and good cheer matched the stern dwarf female looking down on them with her scowl.

"What's wrong?" Serra asked Dana.

"It is Moira Bronzebeard. She married the Dark Iron dwarf Emperor and tried to seize power when her father died." The mage replied. She had worn a rather elegant and revealing dress that showed more of her curves – a sheer mass of blue and pink material. Nor was she the only one.

During Serra's time of convalescence at Wyrmrest temple, it would seem that most of her fellow heroes had gone to the flying city of Dalaran. Freshly rewarded by the dragons for saving the world, they had spent a king's ransom on frivolous expenses. Now she had to admit that it served a purpose. Serra looked like the poorest person amongst the heroes. Even her staff, a symbol of her standing as a mage of the White Tower looked far simpler and inadequate in contrast to the ornate staff carried by the blonde human in the revealing robes.

The dragons had been kind to her though. Serra was a scholar at heart, and she had used her time to talk to the dragons about their history. They were thousands of years old, older than even the oldest of Dragons on Ulthuan. The amount of knowledge imparted to her would have filled a wing at the Library of Hoeth. Two dragons were foremost in her thoughts.

One of them was Alexstrasza the Lifebinder. She was the oldest and wisest of the Red Dragonflight, and their matriarch. Hers was the domain of life, and in as a gesture of thanks, she had nursed the remaining champions backed to health. The winds of Ghyran emanated from her with the power of tempests. When she walked on barren ground, fecund life would flow. Her power rivalled that of Isha herself. She had commanded the power of a Goddess at her peak, and now even after giving most of it away to defeat her wayward kinsman, she was mightier than any mortal that had walked upon Azeroth.

The other was a female drake called Chronormu. Her name was odd. From what little Serra had understood of Bronze dragon naming conventions, her name should have been Chronormi. She preferred taking the form of a female gnome, and enjoyed pretending to be perky. It was somewhat annoying, but Serra had already been enthralled by her tale – and those of her flight. The Bronze Dragonflight's duty was to maintain the flow of time. In a world as full of magic as Azeroth, it seemed that it was possible for mortals to tamper directly with time. It was not the vagaries of timewarping to move at supernaturally large speeds. It would seem that time itself could be manipulated to alter the past – or destroy the future. The bronze Dragonflight mostly guided young and ambitious mages away from the folly of tampering with time. As they had complete mastery of time, they could look into possible futures and avert them in the most dire of circumstances.

Serra's heart longed to return to the Wyrmrest Temple and journey to the different dragonshrines. Her aid in the defeat of Deathwing had got her into the good graces of the dragons, and she wore on her neck an amulet that would transport her to the deserts of a far away land called Kalimdor, where she would be welcome to observe Azeroth's history in a mystical place called the Caverns of Time. It was something she looked forward to doing.

Until Asuryan's power was reborn within her, accessing Ulduar would be impossible. It suited her sensibilities to watch these ancient beings uphold their sacred duties. In a way, the role of the Dragonflights on Azeroth was analogous to the role of the Slann in the Old World. They were both charged with protecting their worlds by higher powers. The way they went about this was completely different. While the Slann kept to themselves, brutally killing almost everyone who came across them and destroying entire countries on a whim, the Dragonflights actively tried to preserve and protect intelligent life. The dragons had small armies of dragonkin, who acted as caretakers and defenders of their broods. The dragons also actively enlisted the help of the 'younger races' as they called the different peoples of Azeroth when the time came to defend the world.

Serra was brought out of her contemplative reverie when she noticed that all of them had climbed up to the top of the ladder. They stood before the august personages as the guards around them looked impassively. Then Varian Wrynn spoke. His voice carried over to the outskirts of the keep, where a large crowd – many thousands strong – had gathered to see their king thank the heroes of the Alliance.

"People of Stormwind! A year ago, the very world shuddered as the dread dragon Deathwing burst forth to complete what his daughter had attempted to do so many years ago. We beat back Onyxia, and became all the stronger for it! Now, these brave heroes have fought for the fate of the world, and defeated the monster himself. Deathwing's dark armour now adorns the entrance to our fair city!"

The crowd roared and cheered. Varian Wrynn simply smiled a warm and friendly smile before beckoning the heroes with his hand. "Please, champions. Follow us. We have kept you waiting for so long. You must be starving."

As he led them into the walls of the keep, Serra noticed that the golden haired human with the staff walked towards her. In human terms she was quite stunning to look at. A heart shaped face with intelligent blue eyes and framed by long golden hair was certainly something that merited a second look. This close, Serra could feel the power emanating from her staff. She was certainly a skilled mage by human standards. She idly wondered who would win between the two of them in a magical duel.

"It is always good to see a fresh face amongst our mightiest heroes." She remarked in perfect Thalassian.

Serra was momentarily nonplussed but replied. "I am glad to have played my part, your highness." She assumed that it was the Queen she was talking to. Talking to humans bored her, no matter how high or low their station.

The woman did not seem to take the hint. "I must say, you have a rather unique accent. I haven't heard it before."

"From very far away your highness. I must say, your Thalassian is impeccable." Inwardly Serra sighed. The Queen was clearly a powerful mage. The staff she carried swirled with arcane energies that were quite potent.

"Ah, my education at my father's court and in Dalaran was an excellent place to practice the language. It is always charming to talk to someone in the high elven tongue." Came the reply.

"I am happy to have been a pleasant distraction to you." Serra answered.

"I must be frank with you. Half elves are rare outside of Dalaran. It brings me much joy to see one of your kind honoured this way."

She had doubtless meant it as a complement, but as it was Serra stopped and gripped her staff so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

Rhona came to the rescue. "Lady Proudmoore, please. Do not call Serra a half-elf. She takes great umbrage to that." The Draenei knew about her. She had been injured as well during the battle. Much like Serra, she too had come to Azeroth from another world. Of all the people in the courtyard of Stormwind Keep, she could relate the most to Serra's predicament.

Lady Proudmoore appeared to be genuinely shocked at this revelation. Her mouth opened in shock and a delicate hand covered her mouth. She gripped her staff closely and Serra felt some of the latent magic in it begin to wake. "Please forgive me, Lady Serra. I meant no offence."

Serra exhaled slowly. Getting called a half-elf was tiring. She should have been prepared for this. "You had no way to know, my lady. I took none." Her grip on her staff lessened and she sagged her shoulders. She was an Asur princess. Human stupidity should be ignored by her.

By this time the trestle tables were being laid down with food and drink. At least that was something she could look forward to. Her short stint as a mercenary and an adventurer for hire had brought her appreciation for simpler and more tangible things. As it was, she sat down next to the Proudmoore woman without any lasting sense of ill will.

* * *

Matthias Shaw stood at a distance from the table, almost disappearing into the furniture of the room. The War Council might be in full swing, but he had his own failures to contend with. It was a novel feeling. One that he had last felt when some fresh adventurers had come to him with a scrip of paper from one of the Defias messengers.

The half-elf had eluded any form of information gathering. The only thing he had definitively learned was that her name was Serra, some of the marine soldiers called her Serpentslayer, and she hated being called a half-elf. One of his agents had tried to rifle through her belongings, only to be rushed to the tower infirmary after he had suffered several burns. Her companions, well known amongst the Alliance leadership in their own right had flat out refused to share any information about her.

Even when prince Anduin himself had asked the Draenei paladin Rhona, she had simply shaken her head. It would seem that the only way that they would know about Serra was if she decided to tell them herself.

Now he was observing the fate of Alterac. By the slimmest of margins the leaders of the Alliance had voted to reinstate Alterac to the Alliance. Genn Greymane had abstained. His anger at the fact that a large part of his subjects – both cursed and humans had escaped to Alterac – made him recuse himself from the table. That was good. It did not take a very perceptive man to say that the old king was going to refuse the entry of Alterac to the Alliance.

Tyrande Whisperwind had accepted purely on the basis of military expediency. Silverpine was too rocky and mountainous to use for a proper assault on the forsaken heartlands. Alterac on the other hand was far more secure from direct assaults and held a commanding view of Andorhal and it's surroundings. As long as the people of Alterac would accept an alliance military expedition to bolster their defences, they should be accepted in the Alliance. After all, holding Alterac would have a permanent knife to the heart of the Forsaken.

The dwarf delegation, led by Moira Thaurassian elected to abstain. According to her, it was a human matter best left to humans. At the same time she read a field report from the Ironforge artillery brigade signed by a certain Hulda Stoutiron who spoke highly of the combat effectiveness of the mercenaries. If they were training the people of Alterac, it would be a waste of resources to alienate this powerful faction. On their own, Isiden Perenolde might be a nuisance. As a member of the Alliance, he could provide a staging ground for the reclamation of Lordaeron.

Mekkatorque, who was here as an advisor to the _Skyfire_ project decided to follow Moira's lead and accept whatever decision the human members of the Alliance.

Prophet Velen was magnanimous to the people of Alterac. The light was full of forgiveness. If the Sin'dorei could be redeemed after what they had done to sate their magical addiction, then so could the people of Alterac for a decision that had been made by their king at the height of a genocidal war. He wholeheartedly supported the reinstatement of the wayward nation into the Alliance.

Jaina Proudmoore was remarkably ambivalent about the whole affair. She believed that the humans of Alterac were not trustworthy enough to join the Alliance without proving themselves first. After hours of arguments it was decided that she would allow them to join the Alliance on the condition that they immediately help the war effort in Kalimdor. Garrosh Hellscream was on the move once more. With the loss of the Barrens, all that stood between Theramore and the Horde was Northwatch Keep.

Surprisingly enough, Varian Wrynn assented with Jaina. Matthias suspected that the mercenaries had intrigued the king. The forsaken were a fearsome foe, as the Wrathgate had shown. Any force capable of handing Sylvanas Windrunner a bloody nose was something to be putting into the fray as much as possible. Removing them from Alterac would also make it easy for Stormwind to influence the fledgling nation. It would work both ways to the benefit of Stormwind. If the mercenaries were victorious, the Horde would be dealt a crushing blow in Kalimdor. If they failed, Alterac would be all the easier to control.

As the messenger was summoned to send a missive to Isiden Perenolde with a conditional invitation to join the Alliance, Shaw retreated to the shadows. Melrick was dead. It would seem that the mercenaries would require a more hands on approach to control. It was up to him to figure that out. Meanwhile, far in the distance, the city of Stormwind celebrated, glad to know that the world was safe from the horrors of the twilight's hammer cult and the madness of Deathwing.

* * *

 _ **A/N: Sorry about the delay fellas, I had some IRL stuff to do. Plus I had to redo this entire chapter from scratch.**_

 _ **Deadliestfan, Regarding casualties. Most of the casualties in a battle at this phase occur when an army is killed off during the routing. The mercenaries do not waver or break their lines, leading to somewhat lower losses than what you would assume. The fact that they manage to destroy the siege train used to bombard Gilneas means that for the moment Sylvanas lacked her chemical weapons.**_


	37. Chapter 37

**Marching out**

* * *

Dawn stole on Alterac, rising over the snowy peaks, turning them from shapely lumps of darkness into a glorious array of peaks, shimmering golden as they took in the rays of the rising sun. Erich could not help but admire the morning each day he woke up. From his quarters, he had an excellent view of the mountains. A few moments of peace, where the world seemed to be still underneath the vast expanse of the sky. Those few moments were special because his mind was completely empty. He would feel like a child, at awe with the infinite horizons that stretched out before him. Then his daily slog of drilling the troops would begin.

Today, however was a special day. A delegation from the Alliance had arrived a few days ago, formally offering the Kingdom of Alterac a place back in the Alliance. Isiden Perenolde had been stately and measured when he had received it in his refurbished court. In his private study however, the man had hugged Erich and had thanked him for making it possible. His worth nightmare had proven to be false. A small test of loyalty was all the High King required to fully reinstate Alterac into the Alliance. Two thousand soldiers of Alterac would be needed to defend a distant kingdom called Theramore. In return the Alliance would help defend Alterac with three thousand soldiers.

Erich had said it was an excellent idea. They would be ready to depart as soon as he had finalised the companies of men that he wanted to pick. From that moment on, his life – and those of his underlings had been of dinners and meeting people, along with studying maps of Theramore and drill while he was sober. The fact that they would be fighting orcs had galvanised his men. Tilean or Imperial, the hatred for greenskins ran deep in their veins. They did not even seem to mind that they would be sailing for weeks, just as long as they were protecting humans from orcs, while getting paid for it. They might be mercenaries, but when all was said and done, killing Greenskins was a patriotic and civic duty for every one of them.

The three companies – or regiments as they were being called now in accordance with Imperial standards of state troop companies – were a mixed bunch. One of them, by far the best men and women he had trained were led by none other than Lorna Crowley. She was intelligent, and efficient and showed an amount of tactical flexibility and effectiveness that would have impressed even Kurt Helborg. The regiment, made up of Gilneans and a few Alterac peasants had the honour of being the first unit presented with their own own colours. A snarling wolf's head with crossed handguns made up the regimental standard of the First Gilnean Regiment.

The second regiment Erich had selected had been an Alterac one. Led by a diligent and obedient old veteran named Edward Morley, the soldiers had perfected their drill to an extent that would have made the Nuln Greatswords feel envious. Their regimental colour was a hawk, perched on the top of a snow capped mountain peak.

The third one had been the most curious of the bunch. Gilneans were not the only ones who had been trickling into the newly formed kingdom. A small groups of people had taken over the town of Strahnbrad which had been abandoned in favour of the capital. What had surprised Erich had been the fact that they were coming from the _north._ From what he had been told, the lands north of Alterac firmly belonged to the undead monsters like the forsaken. It would seem like much of Sylvania, the abominations kept humans as cattle to toy with. Scarcely better than beasts, they had kicked and screamed when Erich had led his splendid little army to retake the town. Their leader, a man with a wild mop of golden hair and armed with a mixture of chain and plate had come down to parley.

Erich had laid down the king's terms. Alterac was open to all who acknowledged the sovereign borders of the land, and pledged to serve house Perenolde while they lived there. He had noted with grim satisfaction that what fight that the people might have had had gone away when the promise of safety and shelter had been given to them. They were some of the last remaining humans of Lordaeron, who had been fighting the undead for years. Their fanaticism bordered on the macabre glee of witch hunters.

Isiden Perenolde was an amiable man. He promised to grant them the town of Strahnbrad if they swore to accept him as their ruler. In turn they would be under the aegis of the Alliance and have a chance of having farmland to till. It was enough to forsake their previous allegiances. They had belonged to an order called the Scarlet Crusade. Captain Dawnbreeze had been livid when she had heard that they too had been allowed into the nation. Still, warm bodies were warm bodies, and could be taxed or levied. By some strange twist of fate it would seem that Luigi shared more than a passing resemblance to the last prince of Lordaeron. It was therefore decided that he would be in charge of drilling them.

The third regiment that was to go to Theramore was a much more mixed force, with nearly half of them women. Their responsiveness was barely adequate, and they had the rather disturbing urge to charge in with their pikes instead of standing their ground and advancing in a co-ordinated manner. Their discipline however was impeccable, and they marched through the snow and mud without a single complaint even when Erich's mercenaries were grumbling. Their standard was a stylised L, pure white in colour on a background of scarlet.

This was the force with which Erich was to aid a certain Sorceress named Jaina Proudmoore in the defense of her realm. From what the ambassadors had told of her, she seemed like an uncommonly resourceful person. She had led much of the survivors of Lordaeron to establish a new polity across the water. Her city was the heart of the Alliance, where she had negotiated with the Night Elves and had welcomed them. It was also the single major port that the Alliance had on Kalimdor's east.

As far as the ambassadors knew, the orcs had not even begun to mobilize, but that meant nothing. Generations of experience fighting with the greenskins had taught the men of the old world that the orcs were like a force of nature. Supplies and timetables did not matter to them. When they were in the right frenzy for destruction, they would move as inexorably as the tides themselves. Time was off the essence. The plan for their deployment was straightforward. They were to march to Southshore, where several transport ships would ship them to the city of Theramore. Depending on the response of the greenskin Horde as the enemy was being referred to, they would either dig into the city or strike out for offensive battles.

Erich browsed over the maps that the ambassadors had given him one more time. The city of Theramore had been designed well. Unless there was a major naval blockade of the city, it would be impossible to starve the city into surrender. The walls were thick and had several heavy cannons mounted upon them, making the storming of the walls a long and bloody affair. Nor were they supposed to be the only soldiers there. Caledra had been joining him recently in his room to help him with military insignias and general questions. Erich rather enjoyed her presence and it was becoming harder to maintain an air of sternness with her.

Still, her knowledge was valuable. It seemed that Stormwind was sending an elite force – the Seventh Legion to help bolster the the ranks. From what Erich had seen so far of the Alliance's soldiers, he had not been impressed. Yes, they were armed and armoured so heavily that they made the reiksguard look like free company militias. At the same time their tactics barely evolved beyond a simple shield wall. Any advantage they would have in armour would be negated by close range handgun fire, and their shield wall would be of little help against rows upon rows of pikes and halberds. Maybe this Seventh Legion had more advanced tactics than the regular forces of Stormwind.

He simply shrugged and rolled up the maps before putting them in his knapsack. It was time to leave. Most of his gear was to be left in his quarters in the city. Even as he walked down to the parlour of the house, the sounds of soldiers rising in attention. Luigi was there, in his suit of dwarf forged half plate. His pistol – a tilean firelock – hung by his hip, with an estalian blade adorning his other hip. He leaned on a pillar for support and yawned. Always a late riser, the young man hated getting dressed before dawn.

Lorna Crowley was also present. As always she had put a rose in her long hair, which was the only vanity she had. The rest of her clothes was a mixture of officer's armour, leather and silk cloth and marching boots similar to those worn by soldiers. She looked wide awake and a little bit excited. It was her first command after all. Erich idly wondered how much she would like it when soldiers around her looked at her for guidance in the thick of battle.

Edward Morley was similarly dressed, but he had an enclosed helmet that was popular amongst the soldiers of the alliance tucked under his arm. A shield was on his back, and a broadsword was ready on his hip. His posture was firm and ready. A life of military service had made him stand ramrod straight in the presence of superior officers.

The last officer awaiting him was the leader of the First Lordaeron Regiment. He had shaved his wild beard, and wore his long blond hair in a ponytail, but Captain Josiah Miller still had a spark of madness in his eyes that did not seem to disappear. Erich did not doubt that it would engulf him in the heat of battle. He needed to be worked upon.

"Lieutenant von Pavona, are the troops assembled?" Erich asked in a firm voice. While it was a polite nothingness, he had to admit, the spectacle of military decorum was rather endearing in it's own way.

Luigi held himself straight and saluted, a gesture that was followed by the three others. "Yes, Grande Capitan. We await your orders to march."

Part of the regimental structure had been giving everyone a rank. Luigi was his adjutant, which meant that he needed to give him a second name. The boy was born in a brothel and had spent just over half of his life there before tagging along with Erich and his men. Naming him after the city had been a no brainer. Similarly, Erich had been promoted to the rank of Grand Captain. He knew that the title meant nothing. After all, he was to be subordinate to this Proudmoore woman. Still the rank ensured that it was he who would have command of the Alterac contingent.

Erich cleared his throat. "At ease, officers. Take your positions. Lead your regiments, and camp at twilight. Dismissed."

The march out of the city was as ceremonial as it was necessary. The newly remade kingdom of Alterac was sending it's sons and daughters to war. It was to be a spectacle that would long be remembered and talked about. When the people of the city would see the army on the march, they would know that now and forever, when the Alliance was threatened by the horde, they had marched to the aid of their kin. The regiments had been chosen for the same reason. Despite the outward show of unity, Isiden Perenolde knew that his rule was a small step away from total collapse. The peoples of Lordaeron, Gilneas and Alterac mistrusted each other. While they had all accepted his rule, they would have knives out for each other. They needed to know that they were working together. And what better way to show their new found unity than by fighting against a common foe side by side, under the banner of the Alliance.

Erich had scarcely taken his place when the neigh of a horse brought his attention to the stables. Then she appeared riding a splendid white horse, and carrying a banner with the golden lion's face on a field of blue. Caledra Dawnbreeze had always looked stunning, but now she looked as though she was a goddess in the flesh. Her long, golden hair flowed freely to the small of her back, and the light bits of colour she had added to her lips and her cheeks made the pale alabaster of her skin stand out even more. Erich had read stories and listened to ballads about the mysterious and alluring beauty of the fay folk. Until this moment, he had regarded them as the superstitiousness of peasants. Now he realised how true they had been, and how bad their descriptions were.

In the early morning light, Caledra looked like an extension of the sun itself, clothed in blue and gold and carrying a banner. Words would have failed to describe her ethereal beauty, and the most talented painter would run out of brushes before even capturing a tiny amount of the rapturous presence before her. Erich's heart began to beat faster and he felt a flush creeping up his cheek. To his terror, Caledra turned her mount towards Erich and slowly trotted towards him. With each movement of the horse, her body shook artfully. Erich's face began to get warmer as she approached closer. When she greeted him with a smile, Erich felt that his nose was going to bleed from all the blood rushing to his face.

He managed to return her greeting. Thankfully she moved her horse a small distance ahead of him and raised a pale and shapely arm to start the procession. Instinct took over. With a long and fluid movement he withdrew his sword from his scabbard and for good measure twirled it in his arm. When Captain Dawnbreeze began to move at a leisurely trot, Erich raised his sword high above his head and brought it down. The drummers began to set the beat, a quick light-hearted one that suited a march almost perfectly, the fifers picked up the tune and the column began to march with Erich at his head.

They marched from the barracks to the front of the castle. The soldiers of the regiments that were to remain in Alterac stood at rapt attention and saluted their comrades in arms. Slowly, the barrack gates began to open, and Erich was surprised to see the change wrought upon Alterac city in so small a time.

Banners of the Alliance and Alterac hung from every wall and battlement of the castle and the larger buildings of the city. The road and walkways were now all made of cobbled stone and houses that had been gutted or ruined now had smoke belching out of chimneys. It had been his handiwork. Isiden Perenolde might be a lot of things, but he was an excellent governor. All the money collected from the nobles and his treasury had gone a long way to repairing the city. Trade had begun to flow into the city, and people had more to eat than rationed ogre meat. Erich felt oddly proud of himself.

Isiden Perenolde was standing at one of the lower battlements, with the ambassadors from Stormwind, Ironforge and Darnassus. Their faces were clearly visible, and when Erich raised his sword to acknowledge their presence, his entire company of mercenaries snapped their head to the right simultaneously. It was doubtless impressive, as he could tell from the childish smile of the King and the wide eyed amazement of the ambassadors.

Nor was the king the only audience. The main thoroughfare had just enough place for the column to march through, while the rest were filled with cheering crowds and curious onlookers. Hundreds, maybe thousands of flowers and petals were thrown on the road out of the city, causing a few of the men to sneeze. Still, the gesture was touching. At this moment, the eyes of an entire people was upon them, and the pressure not to quail under the gaze was immense. Subconscious thoughts of this body of men and women, lying dead on a far away swampy land entered Erich's mind. He dismissed them. It was his duty to ensure that they returned in good strength.

"We are making history here Capitan." Luigi's voice said, from a yard behind.

"So we are. How do you like your new name, lad?" Erich asked in turn.

"It feels cumbersome and unwieldy. Like the first time I wore my armour." The younger man replied. Erich smiled. It was a very apt comparison. Based on Luigi's humble birth, most would have assumed that the boy had been a simple catamite. Erich had seen the curiosity and intelligence behind those bright green eyes and the mop of golden hair. Throughout the years, Luigi had surprised him with his brightness. A rose growing in a pile of dung, as his father would have said. But the boy had become so much more to him now.

"I look forward to see you grow into it." Was all he managed to say.

As the freshly repaired gates of Alterac opened, Erich's heart leapt. The colours of all the regiments that would be going off to war had been hung on the gate's tower. Highest amongst them was his family crest, fluttering gaily in the morning breeze. It was something his father had said to him often. _A pipe dream_ , he had muttered in his rebellious moods. But here it was. The crest of Solland flew over the gates of a city once more. He gulped and stopped for a moment, drinking in the sight.

Then they marched on, out of the city and towards the lowlands of hillsbrad, with fife and drum setting a rhythm to the march.

For the first time in years, Erich Von Peiper felt completely at peace.

* * *

Caledra carefully tied her horse to the wagon's saddling post. A slice of apple appeared in her hands and the faithful animal accepted it happily, chewing on it as she removed the saddle from it's back. She tucked the saddle under her arm and began to make her way through the bustle of the camp. Laughing soldiers shared meals of hard bread, salted meat and cheese around campfires. Some of the more musically inclined men and women struck up impromptu beats with small, home made instruments or even with their hands and feet. The pleasantly inane buzzing of hundreds of voices engaged in conversation hummed in her ears, and she rather enjoyed when some of the less drunk men and women would recognize her rank and salute her. She walked all the way to the back of the camp, where all the officers were quartered. As she stood by Crowley's tent, Caledra was treated to a spectacular view.

The sun was setting over the mountains of Alterac to their north, for they were now in the warmer foothills of Hillsbrad. Spring was in it's full splendour this south of the mountains. The scent of flowers and trees filled her nostrils, and brought back memories of Southern Quel'Thalas. At the height of their might, the seasons had no hold over the land. Winter brought with it a pleasant cool breeze. Here, exposed to the elements, there was something fierce about the natural world. A sense of purpose filled the land on which the army of Alterac now trod. The seasons would continue their slow dance long after the humans were dead and gone. Long after she was dead and gone.

Caledra turned to walk to Erich's camp, curious about the noise coming from within. Some laughter and boasting in both common and reikspiel were the most of it. A young human, whose voice had scarcely begun to break stood nervously outside. A page by all accounts. His well tailored clothes, posture and neatly combed auburn hair spoke of noble birth, and the way he quivered as he stood in the breeze made it clear that he took his banner carrying duty very seriously.

The burly mercenary who had carried the mercenary flag had resigned from his post. Now, he lived in Alterac, working underneath Talaena, making parts with his new Gilnean wife. Erich had been in two minds when he had let the man go. He had paid for the wedding of course, and had joked loudly in the inn where the reception had taken place. At the same time, the slight sense of disappointment when he saw the page was enough to see that he was not completely happy with losing a member of his company.

Caledra walked up to him and gently brushed his head with her hand. The boy turned as red as beet and stammered something she could not make out. "Is the Captain busy?"

"Y-yes, Captain D-dawnbreeze. He is going through the day's briefing with the regimental officers." The boy managed to say.

"Then you will not mind if I go in would you?"

"N-no."

She rubbed his head once more and walked in. Even as her hand reached for the tent flaps, her ears picked up a half erotic – half disbelieving sigh from the page's lips, and the sound of him falling flat on his rear. It would seem that the boy had taken a fancy to her.

Erich's voice came clearly as she strode into the tent. "For the last time, that powder is expensive. I will not have people starting fires with it. Use flint and tinder."

Half a dozen people sat around a table, while Erich stood a slight distance away Each of the regimental leaders sat on a chair with mugs of ale and plates filled with crumbs lying in front of them. Luigi, Hans and Littorio were also present.

"Grand Captain, with all due respect, it is hard to light the cook fires in this weather. The logs are damp and we tried using tinder before we got that barrel." An older man in chain mail was saying.

"An entire barrel? What were your men trying to do, make a bonfire the size of the bloody camp!"

"The only time they handle powder is when they are firing the guns, Grand Captain. I will tell them to be more careful next time."

Erich simply shook his head. "Fine. Use powder to light fires. But from now on, my men will be doing the distribution." He cracked his knuckles before continuing in Reikspiel, "Littorio. You and some of your more trusted boys are going to be distributing the powder. Make sure that it all comes from a single barrel. We have a limited supply of it, and Myrmidia knows that in the hands of this rabble we would be clubbing orcs with the wooden stocks when we get to the fighting." The older man simply nodded.

"Hans. Take some of the most sober lads that you have and set a double guard around the powder barrels. If some idiot wants fireworks give him a thrashing and until he gets sober."

"The lads won't like staying up at night, Erich."

"Then tell them they can sleep in the food carts all day. Maybe tell them to pretend that they are going to Middenheim from their Drakwald hovels. Just don't let the idiots eat all the food." Erich snapped.

Hans laughed, his golden handlebar moustache and sideburns quivering. "No problem. Do you mind if I keep watch as well?"

"Most certainly not. You, good servant of Ulrich are going to march with your halberdiers until we make camp."

Erich then changed back to common. "I say, does anyone else have anything else to pester me with?"

No one replied.

"Good. Have a good evening everyone. We awake an hour before dawn. You know how it works."

Everyone began to leave. Hidden as she was in the shadows of the tent, Caledra felt curious. What was he going to do now?

As if he was replying to the question in her mind, Erich poured a glass of rum and drank it in one go. Then he sat down on an empty bench and brought out a parchment from his travelling bag. Caledra's eyes detected the broken seal of theramore on the paper. Erich unfolded it and kept a candle at the edges to prevent it from rolling up. Then he brought out a piece of empty parchment and began to scribble on it.

She sighed and left the tent. Erich Von Peiper had an almost singleminded devotion to his craft. Caledra had been quite surprised when she had seen Erich's face turn red when he saw her carrying the Alliance banner at the head of the procession. Caledra had for some reason quite enjoyed his attentions. The fact that someone so focused as him could be distracted by her was a pleasant surprise. It would seem that it had been momentary. She would be better off getting some sleep. She had heard the man. For a mercenary, Erich was a stickler for punctuality.

As a gentle breeze wafted through her hair, Caledra felt alert. She was just a few paces ahead of the column, and could clearly hear the marching song they were playing. Like all songs in Reikspiel, it was grim and dark, with enough gallows humour to make her feel ill. The tune itself was cheery enough for a song that was welcoming spring, but the lyrics were fatalistic. From what she could make of it, the song welcomed spring, plaintively thanking strange gods that the snows of the mountain passes were melting, and the rivers were flowing. Then it turned grimmer. Things stirred underneath the soil, scurrying away with prisoners. Ratfolk were bursting out of the sewers, the dead were leaving their graves to wage war on the living, and with the opening of the passes, Orcs were coming to the land to pillage and burn.

She quickly turned to look at the mercenaries. While she had never noticed it before, Caledra was struck by the realisation how lean and weather beaten their faces looked. The roads were wide enough for two regiments to march on at a time, and the supply wagons were in the centre, where they could be easily protected.

The remnants of the scarlet crusade were marching side by side with the mercenaries. She knew about the scarlet crusade. Fanatical to the point of insanity, they had been all but wiped out by the scourge, the horde and the alliance. Their resolve made negotiations with them impossible. Even now, they had torn down parts of Strahnbrad to build a new place. Josiah Miller said that they were dedicating it to the light and Alterac to thank for their deliverance, but something about it felt wrong. From what she had seen, when it was finished, half the town of Strahnbrad would be part of the Cathedral of the Second Dawn.

And yet, for all their grim fanaticism, the men and women of the Scarlet Crusade barely seemed to come close to the sheer determination of Erich's men. Every step they made was without complaint. Even the drummers that had been assigned to them had begun to take on some of their brooding aura. It did not help that much of their armour and trinkets were in the shape of human skulls. They looked half like Death Knights themselves when they surrounded themselves with the paraphernalia of death. She had also seen them fight. Whether it be Ogre or Forsaken bearing down upon them they had held their nerve, methodically pushing with their pikes and stabbing the foe. In the midst of battle, they had no concept of valour or honour. They were simply dealing with their trade in the most brutal and efficient manner possible. It also had the repercussion of singing songs of death and loved ones eventually forgetting them as they lay dying on far away battlefields. Their souls themselves seemed to be afflicted by the spectre of constant warfare.

Caledra wondered what these Tileans and Imperial humans would be like if the shadow of death were lifted from their souls. Erich in particular, on the rare occasions that he smiled seemed rather fetching. He was not unhandsome to look at, but his sharp cheekbones, sea grey eyes, pale skin and dark hair made him look like a man who was always haunted. In his own way, he reminded her of her brother. Determined was the word she would have used for the both of them. Talaena had inherited her father's trait. As for Erich, it seemed that he had come to the conclusion that his heir, Luigi was cut from different cloth than him. The Mercenary commander showed his second in command some affectation and seemed to be less uptight in the younger man's presence.

On the fourth day of the march, over halfway through through the lowlands of hillsbrad. they came upon an army marching the other way. Just like them, it flew the banner of the Alliance. That was where the similarities ended. Where the army of Gilneas seemed like a rag tag group of men wearing patchwork mail, plate and everyday clothes dyed different colours, the forces of the Alliance seemed like they had stepped out of the Elwynn barracks an hour ago. Hundreds of men and women encased in Steel armour and carrying the Heraldry of Stormwind marched at a stately pace. At the forefront were a company of knights, over two hundred men strong. Their barded warhorses champed at the ground when the two armies faced each other. The road was too narrow for both of them.

A rider, a messenger in the mithril armour of a knight-captain rode forth on her warhorse and stood in front of Caledra. "Who are you, and where are you going?"

"I am the Alliance Liaison for the Alterac army that has been ordered to go to Theramore for helping with the War effort in Kalimdor."

In response the captain nodded and went back to the front of her column, talking to the general of the Alliance army, a large and muscular human wearing Truesilver plate armour with golden spaulders in the shape of gryphon's heads. After a moment he sauntered over on his warhorse. "Ah, Captain Dawnbreeze I presume. May I speak to the commander leading this ah...army?"

As it turned out Caledra did not have to tell Erich anything. Impatient at the delay, he walked over to her and asked. "Captain Dawnbreeze. May I ask what is going on here?"

She introduced Erich to General Walter Masterston of the Stormwind, and after a very brief exchange of pleasantries, the mounted general said. "Now, then. Move your men out of the road. We have to reach Alterac to defend the newest member of the Alliance." The way he said the last sentence was designed to provoke.

For his part Erich dodged it as gracefully as he could – which meant he said something equally outrageous. "Why don't you move your men out of the road, General? My forces have a ship to catch."

The patronizing smile that Masterston had wore on his face slowly evaporated, replaced by a grimace. "My army is bigger than yours." He said, the words clearly meant as a warning.

With all the grace of a murloc out of water, Erich countered, "Which is why I am asking you to move your men out of the road. We have the smaller force. We can march faster than you."

Masterton thundered. "This army was sent by the High King of the Alliance as a gesture of goodwill and aid to the newly rebuilt nation of Alterac to help secure your borders against the Horde. You will move out of the way right this instant, commander."

Erich replied in his firmest tones. " _This_ army was sent by the King of Alterac to aid the fellow nation of Theramore against the Horde. _This_ army needs to reach Southshore in the next three days or otherwise we miss the ships that will take us there."

To his credit, Masterston beckoned one of his aides over. They looked over several pieces of parchment before he replied. "There will be another flotilla resting arriving in Southshore the next week to transport supplies to Theramore. Your 'forces' can sail with them. Now, move aside or I will be forced to arrest your poorly equipped rabble."

There was a hint of pomposity in his voice that seemed to be grating on Erich. It was he who had trained them, and he had been proud of it too. Caledra watched in horror as Erich clenched his sword hand for a few moments. The fool couldn't be thinking of drawing swords against an Alliance General was he?

At the last moment, much to her relief, Erich simply sighed and signalled his men to move off the road. Almost as if they were a single creature, the men moved off the road with their supply train. After a moment, without a backward glance, General Walter Masterston simply trotted back to the front of his column and resumed his march. The rows upon rows of Stormwind Troops backed by dwarf riflemen and artillery filled the road as far as her eyes could see. It would take them half the day to cross, and the sun would set by then.

It was something Erich had also realized. His men were already at work unloading the supply wagons and setting up camp. By the time the leading companies of Stormwind footmen had gone past them, the men were already settling down for the night. Marching in the dark was foolish, Erich claimed. For their part, the men and women under him were happy that they would not be marching for hours.

Erich simply stood outside the palisade, coolly watching the rows upon rows of Alliance troops march towards Alterac. When Caledra walked up to him, she heard him mutter, "Rabble eh? At least we do not run head first into an ambush when marching through enemy lands."

"Erich, Are you all right?" She laid an arm upon his shoulder.

The reaction was surprising. Erich turned to look at her, and his face flushed. He stammered something in Reikspiel before taking a deep breath. "Yes. I am fine, Captain Dawnbreeze." He nodded vigorously to accentuate his reply. Then he continued. "I suppose Masterston can be forgiven. Compared to his troops, my boys and girls do look as ill equipped as any peasant rabble."

"Don't let it get to your head Erich. After all, the armies of Stormwind did fight alongside you at Pyrewood." It was all she could say. They did hand the seemingly unstoppable Forsaken - led by no other a personage than her former commander, Sylvanas Windrunner – a crushing defeat. Still, that was partly due to luck. The forsaken had left most of their blight on the wrong side of the Greymane wall, and it had been a miracle that the Gilneas Liberation Front had managed to destroy the Forsaken Siege train. Otherwise the mercenaries, for all their discipline would have died horribly.

"I just hope that we make it to Theramore in time." Was all Erich said after a moment of silence.

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is pretty simple. The city is well defended from both land and sea. Assaulting it will be a problem for even the most determined orc. I don't want to turn up the battle, only to see the Orc army broken at it's gates." He seemed pretty earnest when he said that. Caledra smiled. It would seem Erich Von Peiper had more faith in Jaina Proudmoore's kingdom than the young ruler herself had.

"There will be plenty of battles in Kalimdor, Erich. Besides, Theramore is a powerful city with strong walls manned by some of the bravest humans and high elves. Being late by a week will not make it disappear off the face of Azeroth."

* * *

 _ **Machcia, I am glad you noticed that. My line of thought was that the party worked together to defeat deathwing and protect Wyrmrest temple. Arguing over who got the kill on Deathwing would be beyond them. Even though it was Serra who melted the Elementium jaw off, the actual kill was done by Thrall/Go'el. If anyone would credit for saving the world it would be him. Plus I absolutely hate shoving my characters into the centre of every major story point. Suffice to say, the people who fought alongside her know that Serra is a powerful mage. A select few people know the truth about her, mostly the Dragon Aspects and the Draenei Paladin.**_

 _ **Dios de la nada, Blizzard actually managed to sneak in some offhand numbers in chronicle volume three. There were nine th**_ _ **ousand alliance and horde forces at the battle of the Wrathgate, which of course opens another can of worms about how the forsaken were suddenly able to blight Nine Thousand people with their edgy weapons. I mean they launched the blight off catapults not airburst shells.**_

 _ **Captndetergent, glad you liked it the chapter. I wrote the story because I wondered what it would be like for characters in warhammer fantasy to interact with a roughy similar setting that has a lot more modern moral ideas behind it. Regarding the war of the beard, most high elves agree that Caledor II was a twat who needlessly escalated things to a point of no return and lost them their colonies. They also think that they are not at fault, but it is an unfortunate condition of the dwarf's stubbornness and Caledor's incompetence that lost them that war. Dwarfs are still inferior to an elf though.**_

 _ **patiflops2, I am happy that you enjoyed it.**_


	38. Chapter 38

**Sailing to War**

* * *

Erich woke up with a groan, his stomach lurching as the abominable craft waved and bobbed over the water line. For a single moment, his world was stationary before the creaking of the wood burst into his ears and brain – magnified a thousandfold. His head wobbled again as the ship caught a draft of wind and death seemed to lose it's sting. Water. He needed water. And he needed to expel the contents in his stomach. A momentary promise formed in his mind, promising to swear off drinking. It was a scattered plea from his baser instincts. The logical part of his mind, now temporarily suppressed knew that it was impossible. The better thing to do would be to find a bowl or pan to vomit in.

Looking around, he found precious little of those instruments. The Alliance had given him a handsome officer's cabin in their roomy transports. The ships they were sailing on were older battleships, the captain had said. Now they had been converted into transports, and the powder magazines worked excellently for housing important passengers. The lower decks were full of his men. Five hundred men living comfortably in three decks. Woe betide the poor sailors whole lot it was to clean the If he was not so hungover, Erich would have felt smug. His father would have been happy for him in his own cold way. Erich Von Peiper, eligible for his own quarters on a sea going vessel. As it was he simply groaned as the ship moved. By Myrmidia, he really hated ships.

His room had a porthole which he had kept open to keep the fresh air in. Having nothing better to make do with, he shoved a finger down his throat and gagged. His stomach churned, and Erich barely managed to shove his mouth through the opening before his mouth filled up with the foul taste of vomit. For an agonizing eternity his stomach's contents flew out through the wrong hole. When the nasty business was done, Erich leant back and hobbled back to the bed and lay down on it. A bottle of sailor's rum helped cleanse his palette, and Erich felt a nice warm drowsiness in his body. It was a good day to stay in bed.

The moans from the next room put an end to his drowsiness. Luigi had not been idle on the ship. Erich had seen him flirt with the women on board. That was something odd about the humans of Azeroth. There were a lot of women doing the most gruelling task with the same gusto and efficiency as their menfolk. While he had his reservations about Lorna Crowley, the young woman had the makings of an excellent officer. The women of Lordaeron were every bit as fanatical as their male counterparts. Erich however did not relish the possibility of seeing young women lying dead and broken on the battlefield. It felt particularly soul crushing to see women and children among the mangled corpses being picked apart by carrion.

All those thoughts were pushed out of his mind when a loud scream came from Luigi's room. It would seem that his female companion found his skills particularly enjoyable. Erich supposed that growing up in a brothel had helped the young man acquire the art of pleasuring women. Of course, it helped that Erich had all the bearing of a prince and the roguish charm of a whore. And he was in the prime of life. The only nuisance of sharing a wall with the man was that the moaning and screaming would ruin a comfortable day in bed. With that decision, Erich reached for a fresh pair of tights and his codpiece. It was time to get dressed.

After a few minutes of dressing, Erich looked at himself in the mirror. He almost felt naked without his hat. However it felt exhilarating to feel the wind in his hair. Erich began to climb up the stairs, yawning. The bright blue skies and the roar of the sea greeted him as he came out of the poop deck. He was no sailor, but the captain assured him that they were making good headway to Theramore. They would be there by the end of the month.

Frustratingly for Erich, the captain, a burly man from a place called Menethil Harbour had very little knowledge of Theramore – or at least it's military. From what he had bold Erich, the ruler of the place was a diplomat. Their navy was largely non existent, with only a small fleet useful for defending the harbour and keeping away pirates. The fact that they lived a stone's throw away from what was a large hovel of orcs had not troubled them - until of course the Orcs had started a war.

It would seem that in contrast with the cold and cruel pragmatism that was the hallmark of the Old World – the Lords and Ladies of the Eastern Kingdoms and Theramore were by and large ideologues. Of course, orcs had been in their world for a single generation. They had come from another world through a magical gateway called the Dark Portal. With an ominous name like that, Erich had not been surprised to know that a human wizard, probably under the influence of the ruinous powers of Chaos had erected it to further his hold over the Eastern Kingdoms. Now the Orcs were on this world, and bringing war wherever they went. After a hundred or so years of conflict, the people of Azeroth would realise what they were really like. That lesson had been etched in blood and iron in the hearts of every person living in the old world – and doubly so in Sollanders.

After breakfast, Erich was going to return to his maps. There was nothing else to do on the ship. He had already made it his duty to watch over his powder stores and make sure that the men were safely tucked away in their hammocks and blankets. It was boring work, but tiring. When all was said and done, Erich would stumbled back to his bed and fall asleep. It was a good interlude between the fight. His men had a similar burst of activity. Usually the Sergeants would have to remind the men that their weapons and armour needed to be cleaned. But now that boredom had set in and the prospect of fighting greenskins was around the corner, his men kept their gear in a shape so tidy and orderly that a quartermaster would have felt out of place. For his part, Erich cleaned his pistol before tucking it under his pillow. After what had happened to Rodrigo he would be damned if some dead elf strumpet and her pet corpses were going to shank him in his sleep.

To his surprise, by the time Erich reached the captain's cabin, Luigi had joined him. The half vacant smile and general demeanour marked him as a youth who just had the time of his life. He grinned at Erich and yawned.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" Erich asked him dryly.

"Well Alexa had to return to her duties. Her father wants her to take the ship when he is too old to command and she has been the first mate for over a year." Luigi beamed back a reply.

Erich's astonishment must have shown on his face. "So you slept with the captain's daughter who was also the first mate of the ship?" It was certainly impressive. If nothing else, Luigi's loins were far more ambitious than the rest of him.

Luigi's grin only got bigger. He placed his arms behind his head. "Well I think she had her eyes on me for quite a while. We can't all be as single minded in ignoring our fairer companions as you Capitan."

"Well she is not the only one. Half of the sailors seem to want to sleep with you, and the other half want to throw you overboard. The captain seems to be in the latter camp" Erich remarked. It was true. Several of the women had tried to catch Luigi's eye. Some of the older sailors, both men and women looked darkly at him, and Erich had heard stray words that said that Luigi was the spitting image of someone they all knew.

"Well, I hope he doesn't find out between me and his daughter." Luigi replied before clapping his hands together, to shake off the last of his lethargy. "Now, shall we go in and find out what they are serving for breakfast?"

* * *

Serra looked up from her study with a sigh, her journal filled with copious notes from the magical experiments she had been conducting. The mage's district of Stormwind was a surprisingly pleasant place to be in. She had taken her lodgings in one of the several inns that were run by and were filled with elves. A few stares had been thrown her way, but the Stormwind Insignia she wore on her new Mageweave robe and the small bag of money she had thrown in the innkeeper's hands had secured a place she could call home – for a year at the least. Money had never been a problem with her in Ulthuan. In Azeroth, she had literally helped save the world. Now she owned a small fortune, spending her time drinking wine and studying the magical history of this world.

The relationship between elves and humans was most intriguing to her. The Quel'dorei had agreed to teach humans magic hundreds of years ago to help secure their borders and to deal with an errant race of Azerothian Trolls. Unlike the trolls of the Old world, the trolls of Azeroth were lean and reminded Serra of orcs.

The elves had then willingly cohabited with humans in the city of Dalaran for hundreds of years, teaching them how to manipulate magic. Far more grotesque was the fact that they had intermarried with the humans. For her it was a mixed blessing. She fit in the mage district with very little effort. There were plenty of elves, half elves and humans that milled about in the pretty green gardens and cobbled paths of the arcana saturated zone of the city. The humans had also taken rather well to magic. Azerothian magic was far safer to use for humans, and they had developed several rather curious enchanting techniques and alchemical potions that were of great interest to her.

Much to the consternation of her hosts, Serra had converted her spacious rooms into a makeshift laboratory. Alchemy was not her forte, but decades of meticulous note taking in the White Tower had taught her how to systematically analyse how the science worked. She had already brewed several potions that would fortify her body and helped save her precious potion of Charoi for more severe emergencies. Now her days were being spent enjoying the challenging nature of Azerothian Enchantments.

Fortunately for Serra's research, magic in Azeroth was extremely easy to learn. She had a small book of enchantments she had brought at the mage tower and her time was spent deconstructing the different spells. Some of it was surprising to her. In contrast with the humans of the Old World, the Humans of Azeroth had a rigorous grasp of magic – at least at the surface. She was learning so much that it felt like it would be a matter of time before she would be able to use Azerothian Magic at a level of competency that would rival Dana. A sort of friendly rivalry had sprung up between them, although the human was by and large unaware of it. Of course the adventurer was not a match for Lady Jaina Proudmoore. She was a powerful sorceress in her own right, and Serra knew that as far as manipulating Azerothian magic went, she was a minnow compared to the human. Her power dwarfed Serra's latent power and she was a goal to strive towards. Given enough time, she could rival the best humanity had to offer and then overwhelm it. Her heritage demanded no less.

Now it came to put her new found skills to the test. The book of enchantments would not be used for this experiment of course. A true test of her knowledge would come when she would execute the spell flawlessly. An empty vial was to be the focus of her magics. Slowly she used arcane dust – crystallized magic that would have been worth it's own thesis in the White Tower – to create something called a Circle of Power. In effect it it was a miniature version of the Ley Lines that criss-crossed Azeroth. At it's centre she placed the vial and waited for a moment, gathering her own magic to create the spell. A deep breath, and then another. Then it was time.

Tendrils of light purple energy flew from her palm and enveloped the vial, slowly filling it in a glow. The Circle of Power began to 'warm up', changing colours from the colour of sand to a myriad of colours as her magical power activated it. Serra was aware of a vast flow of arcane power below the surface of Azeroth – the lifeblood of the world as a Thalassian magister had put it – and she tapped into the smallest hint of it's power. Her body trembled for an instant as she beheld the vastness of the arcane with her mind's eye. With it, Serra could reorder the world to her fancy. A portal back home would be child's play. She would surpass the Phoenix King of Old and unite the two worlds under the enlightened rule of the Everqueen. Then the temptation was gone. Asur discipline had triumphed over the wild fancies of her heart.

She began to chant an incantation willing the cheap vial of glass to change itself. Arcane power transformed the most minute particle of glass into something stronger, something exotic – something far more fitting for the saviour of a world. When she felt that her spell had done what she had asked of it, she severed the connection and exhaled slowly. Her spell had been a success. She had used the power of the Arcane Ley Lines of Azeroth, resisted any temptation that the surge of power might have given to her and finished her spell, using the lifeblood of the world – with her own magic being a conduit to guide and coax it into place, like a smith pouring molten metal into a mold. She bent down and picked up the newly changed vial, smiling at her handiwork.

What had been a body of cheap glass had been transmuted into diamond. The weight of it was heavier, and when Serra dropped it, the large thud it made was proof enough to her. The stopper, made of cork had been changed into elementium. This was an excellent proof of concept, and more importantly, a fitting receptacle for the potion of Charoi. She spent the next hour slowly dripping the precious liquid drop by drop from a decanter into her newly transformed vial. When this was done, Serra – pleased with herself decided to go down for some food. Just then a knock on her door startled her.

Serra had given strict orders that she was not to be disturbed. Any problem the hostess of the inn might have was smoothed over a generous sum of golden coins. Who in the world could want her now?

She opened the door to see two familiar faces. Dana and Rhona were at her door, and from their faces Serra could tell that something was afoot.

"What is going on?" She asked abruptly. Dressed as she was in a flimsy nightgown that left very little to the imagination, Serra was acutely aware of Dana drinking her form in.

Rhona replied, "We have to go. The Alliance is imperilled. Theramore is in danger."

"What do you mean?"

"The horde has been seen marching into the Southern barrens. A call to arms for heroes and champions has been circulating throughout the city."

"What does this have to do with me?"

Dana answered. "There is good money in it. Are you sure you do not want to come with us?"

Serra froze. More money was always a good idea. She needed more resources for her research. The fact that she was from Cothique had been a constant thorn at her side in the palaces of Lothern. She deserved more money. And killing orcs was a good reward in itself. Eltharion the grim would agree. "Let me get dressed."

In half an hour, her group, joined by the big burly sibling of Rhona was racing towards the Stormwind docks. While it was smaller than Miragliano or Marienburg, the harbour was far more organized. She was stunned at the amount of weapons armour and military supplies that seemed to lay about in the open. Dock workers and off duty soldiers were filling ships with supplies and officials were shouting orders. In her semi secluded quarters in the mage district, the war that enveloped the world was of no consequence. Now seeing transports being loaded with men and materiel, along with the urgency that seemed to mark everyone's step, Serra was keenly aware that she was in the centre of it all.

"Where are all these men and supplies going?" She asked Rhona.

"Somewhere north – Alterac I think the place is called. They are sending a force down to Theramore and Stormwind is reinforcing the front against the Horde." Her brother replied. As was usual the elements of Azeroth surrounded him – drawn to him like moths to an open flame.

"Are we going there too?" Serra last remembered that Erich Von Peiper and his men were marching to Alterac. If Stormwind was reinforcing it, it meant that they had been directed to Theramore.

"No, I told you. We are going to Theramore. Come on, the Lady Mehley is docked somewhere. We have to find it. It leaves in an hour."

They found it, nestled between two larger ships, multiple decks bristling with cannon. While it was a sturdy seafaring vessel, in contrast with the ships next to it, The Lady Mehley looked like a cockle boat. Their triple decks, bristling with cannons, and ornate iconography was every bit as proud as a dragon ship from the harbours of Lothern. The prows of the shape of eagle heads, jutting proudly above the water completed their proud look. She had to admit, humans were certainly capable of making impressive weapons of war.

The sailors on The Lady Mehley beckoned to them. Most of them were human sailors, with a few dwarfs and gnomes sprinkled in. Even as the party walked up, the captain began to shout at the crew about weighing the anchor. The ship's deck was filled with boxes, mostly medical supplies and food. Serra knew what that meant. The city of Theramore was well garrisoned. Supplies were needed, not more bodies to throw into the grinder.

Their quarters were in a corner of the lower decks. Surrounded by the smell of strong spirits, salted meat and biscuits, they spent the time playing cards until the sun raced ahead of them on the voyage west. Serra knew that they were going quite fast for a ship of this size. It was risky to travel full sail at night. A dozen different things could go wrong. The implications were as clear as the waters of the Inner Sea.

Time was running out for Theramore.

* * *

Caledra was finding the journey to Theramore to be quite invigorating. In her life so far, her experience in sailing was largely relegated to short boating excursions with her parents and brother. Her escape from Quel'Thalas had been on foot. The dynamics of a sailing ship was as different from boats as a dragonhawk is to a dragon. Dozens of humans were busy as bees, scurrying about, adjusting the sails, clearing the decks and making sure that no one was going overboard.

From the faces of the sailors, she could tell that they were worried. Occasionally the person in the crow's nest would shout that something had been spotted on the horizon. Then the entire crew's pace would increase frantically as they would run to finish their current tasks before grabbing their cutlasses and guns, peering over the railing with trepidation. Invariably, the lookout would shout that all was clear and they would return to their duties. Remarkably, this did not fray their nerves as Caledra had thought. They were experienced sailors, and kept their cool through the rigours of an enemy attack.

This afternoon, Caledra had caught up with the ship's first mate. The mercenaries, by and large were content to sit in the lower decks, spending their time preparing for the upcoming battle or drinking themselves into a stupor. The smell was incredible. As a result, most of the sailors only stopped by to bring them food or clean out some of the closest pails. 'Mercenary Pigs' was the sneering insult directed at the Tileans. Only it seemed to be eerily accurate in this case. The officer's quarters were a deck above and thankfully cleared of the smell. Sometimes Erich, Luigi or Littorio would bump into the sailors. The Priest – Phillip, and the veteran sergeant were belowdecks with their men.

Something had come of the interactions. Erich stared coolly at the captain and the first mate and was left alone. Littorio was shut up in his room, playing something on his small violin which always made everyone in the vicinity stop and savour the sounds. The old man might blend into the background or fall asleep, but he was a skilled musician. Luigi however had been receiving the lion's share of everyone's stares. The young man was uncommonly handsome – in a way that reminded Caledra of human nobility. His long, free flowing golden hair and bright green eyes would have turned anyone's head. In his new Alterac Lieutenant's uniform and with an armour of dwarf plate, the man looked like he could sit at Varian Wrynn's table and no one would bat an eyelid.

It was no wonder why the first mate had been sneaking into his rooms at night and leaving right before dawn. For his part, Luigi was remarkably blasé about the entire affair. He would smile and nod at everyone when he was on the top deck. He ate his meals with Erich – either in the mess or belowdecks – and spent the afternoons looking over maps with his mentor.

First mate Alexa was a sailor, and that meant that she was mostly bored from the drudgery of her daily chores. Luigi was a fetching distraction for her to toy with when she needed some relief from ordering the sailors about. Right now she was not busy, and was sharing a drink with Caledra in the relatively lavish surroundings of her quarters. A small repast of cheese, bread and rum had loosened her tongue.

"Your sailors seem tense."

"Yes, Fa- The captain is driving the ships hard. Normally we would not sail so fast over the vast distances of the great sea, not this close to the Maelstrom anyway. Too many tales of ships losing their sails in the wild gales, being adrift on the currents or being devoured whole by monsters rising from the depths."

"Why the rush?"

Alexa simply smiled. "Not much of a sailor are you captain?"

"No, I am not." While her reflexes had kept her from swaying like the humans on a ship, her gait must have given her away to the more experienced crew of the ship.

"Normally we would be sailing to Stormwind and then taking a military escort to Theramore, but battleships are slow, and time is of the essence. Which is why we are always at full sails."

"And how fast are we going?"

The first mate finished her drink and produced a logbook from her pocket. She skimmed a few pages and nodded.

"Normally it takes two months to sail from Stormwind to Theramore. It has been three weeks and we have already left the Maelstrom behind us. If we keep up the pace, we should be off the coastline of Theramore isle in ten days." Her face darkened and she continued, "Can you keep a secret captain?"

"What is it?"

"I think that this idea is a fool's errand. If any of the Blood elven destroyers find us here, we will be killed in spitting distance of the shores. This whole idea is a damn mess. Wrynn has decided to create a grand Alliance armada in Stormwind to relieve Theramore – from what I could gather from sailors and officials at Stormwind Harbour."

"That is surely a good thing right?" The young king was famous for his prowess on the battlefield.

"Yes, it would be. Admiral Jes-Tereth knows what she is doing. That is not the problem."

"Then what is it?"

"It means that after we reach Theramore, there will be no more ships coming for us until the Armada arrives."

"Can't you make a break for the open seas?"

"No. The winds will be against us this time of the year." Caledra noticed that the first mate had already filled her cup a third time.

"Have you ever been in a siege before?"

"Me? No. My father fought around Southshore during the second war. He doesn't like it much either. According to him the reason we won was because the High Elven Destroyers were more nimble than their troll counterparts."

"And now they are on the side of the Horde."

"Yes. Even if we make it to Theramore somehow, we will be stuck for the rest of the siege."

"Lady Proudmoore is a good leader. I am sure she has enough provisions for us."

Alexa simply finished her drink in a long gulp. After hearing the news, Caledra joined her.

The conversation soon turned to lighter matters. Even if the shadow of death might be looming over them, there was no need to dwell on it. Invariably, the talk soon turned to lovers. Alexa for one was quite impressed with her latest conquest.

"He is surprisingly gentle and eager to let me take the lead. Not quite like most men I shared beds with." Seeing the sailor giggle like a little girl brought a smile to Caledra's face. The two of them had been drinking for some time and the bottle of rum was empty.

"So what are most other men like?"

"Well they are all sorts. Night Elves are fierce, the High elves are frigid, and most humans are rough."

Caledra's mouth opened in wonder. First Mate Alexa had certainly been busy off duty.

"Oh don't look at me like that. I have seen you cast glances at the dark haired man on occasion."

Caledra icily replied, "Because it is my job to make sure that Stormwind gets everything out of value from him. Mostly making sure he doesn't drink too much and fall off into the sea. Drunken sot."

Alexa burst out laughing at that. "A man that likes his drink? It is about as rare as an out of work peasant in Westfall. Besides, he is not that hard to look at. Almost something out of one of those five copper novels that housewives read. Still, it is hard staring at him."

"What do you mean?"

"His eyes. They seem vacant. Remind me too much of my uncle. He fought throughout the second war and when he returned the carefree and soft spoken man was gone. When he looked at you, you could feel the scraps of his soul pouring out his eyes. Your man looks much the same."

Your man. Caledra found that word odd. Erich was enjoyable enough when he was drunk. There was no doubt. The man had a career fighter's body language. She knew it well enough. Reflexes that were just too fast for an average human – coupled with an easy attitude at rest. In battle he became more than just a fighter. She had seen him fight the forsaken. Calm and collected, always on the defensive, punctuating his thrusts and ripostes with orders to his men. The man had been born to wage war. She could now understand why the people of Alterac now looked up to him. In a land of petty politicking nobles and merchants, warriors would look to the bravest of their kind. Erich Von Peiper's bravery was the opposite of Varian Wrynn's. He would lead from the front, but not lose himself in the fury of battle. A cold and calculating intelligence would be guiding his every movement in the thickest fighting. Caledra had trusted her implicitly, knowing that her life was safe in her commander's hand. Now she was gone.

Erich Von Peiper was Sylvanas Windrunner as far the waging of war was concerned. That was an apt if unorthodox comparison. Arrows in her Quiver they might have been, but the Ranger General had cared for them in life. In death she had hunted them down of course. Her pet – Nathanos Marris – had been seen killing High elven rangers and then raising them with necromancy. She wondered what Erich would do in Marris' shoes.

Her musing was interrupted by a chortle from Alexa. "But anyway, why would I look for the stars when the sun is in my grasp. It would seem that old Terenas was not as venerable as my father thought."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well look at Luigi. What sort of name is that anyway? It sounds like a cipher. Then his looks."

"What about his features?"

Alexa simply rolled her eyes and yawned. "You never noticed how he looks?"

"Lithe, golden haired and sharp faced."

In return she simply smacked her face with her hand. "I thought you would notice. But then again he was dead when Quel'Thalas was invaded."

"Who are you talking about?"

"I am simply saying that this Luigi looks like the mirror image of Prince Arthas Menethil."

* * *

 _ **A/N Regarding Erich flinching at the touch, there is a reason for it that i will tell later. And it is not because he is becoming an anime character.**_

 _ **solarblaster, you shall see regarding Masterson ;)**_

 _ **Machcia, Indeed**_

 _ **darknessfalls, new technologies doesn't always mean that your society has evolved to deal with them. Look up the Cargo Cults as an IRL example of being exposed to new technologies super fast. But yes, characters like Sylvanas will be learning from their experience.**_

 _ **Biolajj, thanks for the kind words.**_

 _ **Fractiousday, can you point me to some specific examples? I will correct them quick.**_


	39. Chapter 39

**Old Friends and Foes**

* * *

Smoke. _Blood. Steel. The cacophony of battle threatened to overwhelm his senses. All he had learned from these past years had not prepared Erich for this. The figure lying at his feet, arm outstretched, holding a cap adorned with a few feathers. This was not happening. He was not ready. He should not even be here. A cold sweat broke upon his brow. Faces surrounded him, out of focus, their features blurred. He could feel their glares at the back of his mind. Looking at him. Awaiting orders. He was responsible for them now._

 _Run. He could still run. There was shame of course, but that was a small price to pay for survival. The battlefield was in chaos. The flank was a going to break when the orcs returned. They were too disorganized, now that the captain was gone. He was not cut out for this. All those theories and ideas that he had dreamed of in his father's studies were not a match for the horror of the real world. His father had been right. He was not cut out for war. He should have stayed at home. A scream was building up in the back of his throat._

 _His eyes looked down at the dying figure. It was still desperately trying to reach him. Kneeling down, Erich grabbed the arm. His mind had stopped. Reflexes were taking over. A single eye, bloody and defiant looked at him. The body, rent and scarred, quivered as Valdoz made a final effort to move. The mouth quivered and words tried to come out. Erich moved his head closer to the dying man to hear what he had to say. The lips parted -for the final time and he finally heard the last command of his captain._

"To arms, Horde ships spotted!"

Erich woke up with a start. Dawn was still an hour off. The stampeding of feet drowned out the soothing sounds of the sea, along with shouts from the captain. Alexa was screeching in Luigi's room. Her father's startled voice was drowned by panicked voices from the crew. The entire ship was abuzz with noise.

He grabbed his pistols and the holster, tightened his belt and put on his boots. A quick peek from his cabin door showed that the corridor was filled with panicked sailors. The older ones were calmer and sterner, while the younger ones were more expressive – fresh faces filled with fear and panic. He had been like them, a lifetime ago. That thought brought a smile to his face, and by the time Erich was putting on his armour, his dream was a rapidly diminishing shadow. Battle called, and he would answer the clarion call.

He walked out of the room, sword and pistol at his hip, and armour polished and hat skewed slightly on his head. The sailors looked at him once before parting for him. Erich was beginning to like them. Running down the stairs, he saw that Phillip and Hans were outside, looking bewildered at the noise. Their red eyes and painful glances told him that they had been drinking last night. As it was, he pushed them away and walked into the hold. Most of the men were shivering and groggy, being rudely woken up hours before they were do.

At the far end of the deck, Littorio was dozing, his violin cradled in hand. Erich shook him awake. The older man woke up with a start, looking confused.

"Good morning Littorio."

"Capitan. What?" He rubbed his eyes and yawned. The man had an incredible ability to fall asleep virtually anywhere. It was enviable.

"We might be under attack soon."

That jolted the man awake. "What? On the ship?"

"Enemy ships have been spotted. I want your lads up on the decks, guns primed."

"Bugger. Give me a few minutes."

"You aren't naked are you?"

"What?"

Erich turned away and began to shake some of the men awake. Most of them muttered something before waking up and gave him dark looks. A lot of them were worse off than Hans and Phillip. This was taking too long.

Rudi was sound asleep, next to the drummer, both their instruments in a pile at their feet.. Erich was about to shake him awake when he noticed the long line of drool falling from the man's face. He grimaced. The man was sound asleep. He smacked the Reiklander on the side of the head. Rudi's bright blue eyes opened and he looked at Erich in surprise.

"What?"

"Get up idiot. We are under attack. Get me a beat."

"Huh?"

Erich rolled his eyes. Myrmidia forgive them. For career soldiers his men were sometimes too drunk to be any good. Bringing his face closer to Rudi's ear, Erich spoke as loud as he possibly could.

"We are about to be under attack. I need a piper and a drummer. Get up you sorry bastard."

Rudi flinched and looked at Erich for a moment, wondering if it was a joke. When Erich did not smile, he nodded and sat up.

"Hey, Timmy." He said in surprisingly passable common.

The boy woke up, a mop of brown hair covered his face. He was young. Far too young to be in a battle.

"What?"

"I want you to give me a marching beat." Erich told him.

Over the next few minutes under the constant banging of the drums, his men began to get up. Some of them immediately retched over the floors of the ship, and a couple of them slipped in the puddles of rum, piss and vomit. Littorio's voice cut through the din.

"Lads, time to be up and about. We are about to be under attack. Grab your guns and follow me and the Capitan to the upper decks." The old man seemed to be ready for action. Some of the more sober men immediately began to grab their weapons, while the worse off men simply groaned and began to get up.

"How many handguns do you have Littorio?"

Littorio began to count. The more capable ones began to fall into neat lines in the centre of the hold, looking at each other. After a minute, Littorio replied. "A hundred, give or take a few."

"Alright. Handgunners move up behind me, Littorio, bring up on the rear. We will each cover a side of the ship and split the men between us."

The sun was beginning to rise up when Erich got to the top deck. The sailors were running around, managing the sails or running with cutlasses and pistols. The ship was rapidly changing direction, and there was a palpable sense of relief amongst the faces Erich could see. He grabbed the first mate by her hand. She turned to look at him and gave a wicked grin. "Hey there, Captain."

"What's going on? How far away are the enemy ships?"

"They are running away. We broke contact with them a few minutes ago. They are too far away now."

Erich was deeply suspicious of this. He had no experience in naval matters and was beginning to hate ships with a passion. "How far away are we from that place. Theramore?"

"It's hard to tell right now grey-eyes. We might be blown off course for all I know." A light touch on his cheek and she was gone, shouting orders to her men.

Erich was stunned by the action. He did not like people touching him. A phobia born of his father's training regimen and the stress of having to live far away from home in Nuln had made him extremely sensitive to anyone touching him. It brought back involuntary shudders and nightmares.

He did not give the order for the men to go back to the hold. Instead Erich sat down cross legged on the deck of the ship and rubbed his head. It was true that he had no idea of naval battles. But the principles of warfare would be the same. A surprise attack would be far more devastating, picking off a ship at a time with superior firepower. It was a grim way to die, huddling in the cold darkness as you slowly drowned. Better that he be on the deck if the worst were to happen. Of all the ways Erich had thought he would be dying, drowning was never a consideration. He knew well enough to keep off the water for long distances. Now it might become his tomb. Life was full of little absurdities like these.

Erich did not remember how long he stayed out on the deck, the knot in the pit of his stomach gradually growing. He half remembered dismissing his men, who grumbled as they went back to their sleeping pallets and rum. His education, his experience and his instincts told him that an attack was imminent. They were a fleet of transport ships, built for carrying goods, not for speed. Warships would be faster and more manoeuvrable. It made sense that if they could have spotted the enemy ships, they would have seen the transports as well. The only reason they would not attack was if they were needed for something else.

Even as he came to this grim conclusion, for a moment, the western horizon turned purple. Everyone on the deck, his mercenaries and the sailors, turned to look at the strange sight. It was something out of the fevered dream of a seer. To Erich it seemed that the entire sky was alight in flames of purple and indigo. It was an eerie sight. In Miragliano, he had smoked some weirdroot and had spent a day staring at the sea beyond the city's canals, enraptured by the most mundane of things. The wonder and terror was increased a hundredfold, as Erich felt a wave of nausea wash over him like a wave.

Nor was he the only one. Some of his worse off men simply vomited where they stood and several sailors fell down. Littorio steadied himself on the mast of the ship. "Myrmidia's blessings. What was that?" He asked no one in particular.

"Sorcery of some sort no doubt." Erich replied. It was a shot in the dark.

A familiar voice next to him said. "Indeed. I can feel it in my bones. A powerful arcane spell has been cast."

Caledra was standing next to him, wearing armour and gripping her bow. Until now Erich had never noticed how tall she was. Her golden hair was tied back in a bun, held together by a sheathed dagger that doubled as a hair pin. She wore no rouge or eyeliner, and yet the most beautiful women that Erich had met in his life would have paled in comparison to her. This close, he could hear the sound of her breathing. Just focusing on her made his heart begin to breathe faster. He moved a step away from her and took a deep breath. He wasn't sure, but for a moment it seemed that she turned to look at him, a slight smile playing on her crimson lips.

"What else can you tell me about the spell?" Erich made an effort to look at the sky, which was now slowly returning to it's normal hues of blue.

"Nothing more. It came from the west, and unless I am much mistaken, it would seem to have originated from where we were going."

"It came from Theramore?"

Caledra nodded. However, when she next spoke, she was unsure. "It is hard to tell. I do not know how far away the city is. Truth be told, I will be happy to have my feet back on land." She began to walk away. It was all Erich could do not to turn back and watch her walk away.

Another familiar face, the older and unassuming visage of Littorio came up next. He looked tired. "Capitan, a word?"

"Yes?"

"Should we stay abovedecks?"

Erich looked at him and shook his head. Littorio simply nodded and snapped his fingers and pointed to the stairs. The men grumbled and began to return to their beds. Erich looked at them go, feeling foolish. The sailors had returned to their tasks, and the small fleet kept sailing over the blue waves. He stood outside for a few minutes, walking aimlessly. Half hoping to see an enemy fleet appear on the horizon, half hoping to see Caledra appear on the deck.

After an hour, he resigned himself to the fact that neither was going to happen. There was nothing he could do here, but go back to bed.

* * *

Hans felt much better now. His mother had been right. The gods had not seen it fit to give him a scholar's intellect. Theological discussions with Phillip would invariably end only one way. With both of them dead drunk and surrounded by cheering men who wanted to see who would pass out first. His faith could demand no less. He might not have the rhetorical flourish or the education of the sigmarite almost-priest, but his stomach was as good as the worshipper of the man-god.

Thankfully, after an hour of retching and rest, his head was clear and the only lasting damage would be to his self esteem. He had not won in the drinking contest. According to the men cheering them on, the two of them had collapsed at the same time. In his more sober and pragmatic moods, Hans would have decided that his honour, and that of his patron god was upheld. For now, he was angry, and wanted to take his anger out on something.

An hour ago, Erich had returned to the hold with important news. The city where they would be fighting had been sighted. This was greeted by cheers and shouts. Every one of his men was sick of ships. Yes, the pay in the Eastern Kingdoms was surprisingly good, but personally, Hans was ready to give all of it up for a snug life in a logging village. He had originally been from a place like that. Out among the outermost reaches of the Drakwald forest, living in a heavily fortified outpost with stout wooden walls. The sight of those always brought a nostalgic smile from him. Pyrewood was run down and was a stone's throw from undead horrors, but the land was beautiful. Wooded hills and small mountain streams abounded the land, with thin strips of farmland broken up by hedges and half unkempt fences. The creaky bridge over the river had it's own charm. He would give up all the gold in his coin purses just to leave at peace there, raise a family and spend the day harvesting lumber from the tall pines.

If Ulric willed it, he would live there for the rest of his life. For now, a debt of honour was needed to be repaid to Erich Von Peiper. The fact that he paid them well was an added bonus. The future could wait. Phillip was right. What they were fighting was a sacred obligation for any human, no matter his or her creed. Greenskins were besieging a city full of people. If he had been educated, he would have written a poem celebrating their holy task. Hans was content with drinking another swig of rum, to wash out the taste of bile at the back of his throat. This was his creed.

His focus was broken by the shouts of the crew. Unlike Erich, Littorio or even Luigi, his common was not up to par. He could speak it well enough, but he was always at a loss when people were talking too fast. Right now, he was feeling lost. Everyone was running, shouting for the ship's captain. Shock and horror was writ large on their faces as their ordinarily sunburned faces turned several shades paler. Something was wrong, and he could not make sense of what it was. Erich would know.

Hans had last seen him waking the men up. When Littorio had returned back to finish his nap, Hans and Phillip had been too preoccupied with clearing their heads to ask him about Erich. The captain seemed to be over eager for action. If they were under attack by enemy ships, their time would be better spent praying to Manaan. They were soldiers, not sailors. The cut and thrust of battle was their home, not the damp decks of ships. Erich was one of those people whose lives revolved around battle. His father had told him that grafs and Von would spend their days whoring and their afternoons planning grand wars of conquest that the ordinary folk would have to pay. He wondered what the old man would think of Erich Von Peiper. When the men would be drinking and whoring, he would be shut off in a room, polishing his pistol, looking at maps and making meticulous notes about the battles. When he had first laid eyes upon him, the recently disgraced sergeant of a middenland company of halberds had thought of Erich as a man who would lead from the rear. For all his stubborn pride, Hans had never been so happy to be proven so wrong.

It was at that moment that Erich came out of his cabin. Hans noticed that the man had shadows under his eyes, as though he had trouble sleeping well. His hatred of ships was well known to nearly everyone in the company. Hans could empathize. No matter what the worshippers of Manaan said, man was not meant to float on bits of wood in tempestuous waters. That kind of foolishness was best left to elves. The two of them would look forward to sleep on the hard ground.

Erich walked up to the captain and the first mate, and spoke for a few minutes with them. They were too far away for Hans to hear. He had to make do with looking at the crew. This close, he could feel the panic and fear they seemed to exude. He heard some words like 'ruined' and 'annihilated', and something about the Light having mercy on them all. The atmosphere on the top deck suddenly turned oppressive, as though a great weight was being pushed on all of them. Hans turned around and began to make his way down the stairs. A shout stopped him. It was in Reikspiel. Erich was shouting for him. He sighed.

"Hans, are you there?"

"Yes Captain. What do you need."

"Get the men up and ready. We are going to land in a hostile port."

"What's wrong? Aren't we going to the city under siege." A pause. In the absence of Erich's voice, the droning of the ship's crew assailed him like flies on a corpse.

"The city has been destroyed. The docks are thick with greenskins. We will have to fight our way in." Hans did not know what to say. Until yesterday, he had known that the city was well defended and garrisoned. Erich's plans were to lay low behind stout walls of stone.

Eventually he simply replied, "Very well captain."

It was strange. The city was fortified, and it had been taken by storm. Orcs would be busy looting the city and butchering any survivors now. If they were to attack now, they would be walking into the jaws of a greenskin horde revelling in victory and even more eager for a fight. There was a time he would have been terrified of the foe he would face. Now, Hans could not even bother to even feel anything other than a sense of annoyance. It was fitting enough for a veteran of war. At the battle of Middenheim, Hans had felt all the fear he would ever feel in a lifetime. He and thousands of other men like him had stood firm against the corrupting powers of chaos. It was there that Hans had realised what drove men onwards in the thickest fighting against the most horrifying foe. With that thought he bounded down the stairs and towards his men.

Hans almost felt pity for the greenskins who would soon have the misfortune of facing hardened men of the old world.

* * *

Caledra had always wanted to visit the city. Several friends and acquaintances from Dalaran and Quel'Thalas had settled there in the aftermath of the third war. The Eastern Kingdoms were too close. Instead they had chosen to start new lives in the Dustwallow Marshes. She had done the same in Stormwind. Theramore was something more than a place for refugees from the Eastern Kingdoms. It was the heart of the Alliance. Now She stared in mute horror at what remained of the city.

Of the famed harbour and market, nothing remained but a large gaping maw that seemed to stretch into the centre of the city. The wide roads and boulevards where the people of Lordaeron and Quel'Thalas had carved out new homes for themselves were now doomed to an eternity of memory.

Of the proud defences that had kept the city safe for all these years a few towers were all that remained standing, their facades and battlements all but ripped apart by an incredible force. By some cruel twist of fate, the banners atop the towers had escaped unscathed. The wind that had sped their ships here now blew through the silken banners – a mockery of their expectations.

Erich's voice brought her out of her shock. He was pointing to a ship in the harbour and shouting something at Alexa. It was surprising to see him shout at someone. In contrast to his usual cool demeanour, he seemed animated, almost maniacal in his intensity. She cocked her head in their direction.

"I am telling you. That ship came in later you stupid girl. Look at the harbour. It is torn to shreds, apart from that ship."

Alexa gave as good as she got. "And I am telling you. No ship of mine is going that close. We are going to the nearest pier and dropping you and your landlubber asses off."

Erich was about to reply to that when the lookout in the Crow's Nest shouted, "Orcs sighted Captain."

His eyes immediately snapped upward as he shouted. "Where?" There was a tone of authority in his voice that could not be denied.

"They are moving into the city." The lad shouted from above. Erich smacked his head with his hand before turning to Alexa

"Very well. You win this one. Land us here."

The next quarter of an hour was spent unloading the men from the ship. Erich was naturally the first one off the ship. The bearded man, Hans followed him with his halberdmen in tow. The handgunners came in next, followed by the pikemen. Even in the midst of all the destruction, the first thought of most of the men was the joy at touching solid ground again. She made to follow after them when she heard the faint sound of the clash of weapons. It seemed to be coming from inside the city.

By the time she had run up to the front of the column, the sound had been heard by human ears. The mercenaries moved with a remarkable alacrity. In the span of moments since they heard the sounds of weapons clashing, they had gone from a mob of drunken sailors into a fighting unit. They were divided into four columns, one for the handguns and halberds, while the pikemen were divided into two shorter columns that covered their march.

"What song do we play Captain?" The sandy haired man with the flute in his fingers was asking Erich. Caledra had forgotten his name.

Erich pondered for a moment, and Caledra was startled at the change that had come over his face. He had always reserved himself in his interactions with her. Even when he was drunk, it had seemed to her that Erich Von Peiper was putting on a mask to hide himself away from the world. It had succeeded incredibly well. She had written him off as an arrogant human noble. Yes, he was tougher than many from the house of nobles, but underneath the tough mercenary veneer, he was the same as them. His underlings were pawns to secure for him a better place in life.

Yet, the grief he felt at the loss of one of his Sergeants was as genuine as the grief she had felt when she had discovered her brother's unliving body shambling towards the ruins of Silvermoon. Lady Swiftarrow's Sentinels had told her that he spent the pre dawn gloom talking to the men on guard duty, sneaking them some drink on occasion. From talking to his sergeants, she had gathered that they all treated him with the utmost respect. The youngest man, the Arthas lookalike looked up to him like an older brother.

He muttered something and everyone around him grinned. They surrounded the young boy from Alterac and helped him set the beat. Erich patted him on the head. The man with the flute began to play, and just like that the small force began to march off into the ruins of Theramore, with a song on their lips. It was a sad song, about reminiscing lovers as the singer lay dying in a far away battlefield. It seemed oddly fitting for the surroundings they were in.

* * *

"More orcs!" Rajash bellowed, even as he planted a totem in a pile of purple dust that seemed to be covering the city. A dozen Orcs were running at them from the husks of houses and alleyways, shouting at them in their barbaric tongues. Serra wondered if the brutes would ever learn how outclassed they were. Then again. It would not be so much fun if they paused to reconsider their tactics.

The ruins of Theramore were saturated with Arcane magic. It filled her senses and energised her soul. She had been itching to try some new techniques ever since her time in Stormwind. The only problem was that she needed a source of magic that she could tap into. It was not much of a problem here. The orcs armed with the throwing axes and spears would be excellent targets for her experiment.

Rhona's cry of alarm told her that it was time to cast her spell. Reaching into the depths of her mind, she cast the incantation for the Shield of Saphery. It was one of the cornerstones of High Magic. On the old world, it would have been an almost invisible shield of pure magic, protecting her from any attack, be it physical or magical. Mages like the Slann or Teclis could make powerful shields indeed. But here, she could do things that they would never dream of. As it was, her staff and circlet glowed white for a moment before a towering cylinder of purple and blue magic erupted from them, surrounding them. The javelins and axes shattered almost immediately from the change in momentum and the a blast of wind pushed the broken remnants of the armaments away. The orcs stared at them in slack jawed amazement for a few moments. It was all the time they needed.

With a flick of her wrist, the shield went down, and a ball of fire crashed into the nearest orc, setting it aflame. It shrieked and howled as the thick plate it wore for armour burned into it's skin, slowly cooking it alive. Desperately trying to dowse the flames that were turning it into ash, it ran into it's friends. The arcane charge at the centre of her magic combusted, turning the orc into a dying explosive. Half a dozen of it's kind were caught in the blast, and suffered a similar fate. Serra smiled grimly, her experiment was having expected results.

Rhona was busy taking her massive crystalline hammer to the Orcs. Serra turned to see an orc's chest caved in. She was surprised to see the strength in the Draenei woman's arms. Outwardly the Draenei sexes looked like completely different creatures. For it's part the orc simply stared at the gory hole in it's chest before keeling over and dying. For her part, Rhona was already trading blows with another pair of orcs, depending on her brother to defend her. Rajash was constantly chanting in an a rhythmic manner, asking the spirits of the earth and water to protect those that fought along him now. Even as they fought, the sensation of cool mountain springs washing over them kept them in good cheer.

Dana meanwhile was fighting defensively. Using a large burst of magic, she had turned an Orc warrior into a sheep. A thin sheen of sweat now covered her face, and she cast ice magic, keeping the other orc at a distance. Using a second burst of magic, she fashioned a giant spike of ice, and hurled it at the orc. The creature was impaled – armour and all – on the wall of a tower. Serra saw the ice turn to black as the orc's blood seeped into the melting ice. It's eyes lolled backward and it finally stopped moving.

She sat down and huffed. Serra noticed that the human mage's breathing was rapid and shallow. The skirmishes over the last hour were beginning to tire most of them out. She sat down next to Dana and brought out a potion she had created. It was a simple potion that would help her regain her magical focus. Dana took it with a smile and a nod, and drank it in a single gulp. The two of them sat down and took a look at the ruins of the city, before being joined by Rhona and Rajash who were considerably more at ease among the corpses of the orcs.

 _The Lady Mehley_ had spotted the city an hour after dawn. The captain's relief on sighting the city had turned to horror as they had come closer. Far from the proud human city that Serra had heard about on the journey, they had come upon a set of ruins that reminded her of the ruins of the Asur that dotted Ulthuan. Ghostly remnants of their days of glory, the sights had always filled Serra with a sense of nostalgia and despair. The city of Theramore was awash with arcane power. The volatile nature was a stark indication of magic overload. It put all her senses on edge and reminded her of the Chaos Wastes far to the north where the winds of magic originated from. Reality had a tenuous grasp on the ruins of Theramore. Serra saw – or rather felt – tears open up in the fabric of reality. Numerous portals to other worlds opened up momentarily around them. She had read of the human city of Praag. It had disintegrated into madness when chaos had touched it. Even now, after five hundred years the city was said to be haunted by the horrors of those days.

In some ways, Theramore was better. There were no chaos spawn bellowing in the street, or the screams of the long dead and gone howling like the wind. However, it increased the unsettling feeling that they were all feeling. Even the noise inside the city was muffled. The sea could barely be heard even though the town was empty even though they were not that far away from the harbour. Sometimes they would hear the tramping of feet and shouts in orcish, which made the party grip their weapons. It would seem that the orcs were just an alleyway or a street away from them. When they would try and take a look, no one would be there. All this was going to fray their nerves if they were not too careful.

Fortunately for them, Dana had been to the city, and she had a good idea where they were going. When they had landed on the docks, a party of orcs had tried to greet them. After dealing with them in an extremely prejudiced manner, the small party had been worming it's way to the centre of the city. The arcane resonance strengthened the farther in they went. Whatever had caused the ruin of Theramore had originated from there, of that much Serra was sure. What bothered her was the mere fact that someone or something had caused an arcane explosion so powerful as to have levelled a city. In the old world, Ulthuan, Lustria or Naggaroth, there were a handful of people who were capable of doing that. She had heard rumours from scholars that at the dawn of time, the first Slann mage priests were capable of doing such a thing. She doubted that even Prince Teclis would have the power to do what happened here.

"Do you hear that?" Rhona suddenly said. They had been resting their bodies for the last few minutes. Fighting hordes of orcs was tiring when there were less than a handful of them. Rhona, who had recovered from their skirmishing first had been pacing about for a few moments, her hooves striking the cobblestone.

Everyone else scrambled to listen, and for a moment there was the eerie silence. Serra could very faintly hear the wind whistling from inside the ruined city. Then she heard it. The faint beat of drums, sometimes louder and sometimes lost to the wind. It seemed to be progressing into the city centre, where they were headed. Serra looked at them quizzically.

"Orcs often use drums to co-ordinate larger raiding parties." Rhona replied. Her eyes had taken a far away misty look, and the there was a low undertone of anger in her voice.

"It is hard to tell how many drums there even are. The sound comes and goes like the wind shifts." Rajash said, holding on to his totem. It was a beautiful thing, crafted – as most draenei artefacts were – from crystal and held together by silver and gold. Each totem was made from a differently coloured crystal and as far as Serra could tell, each one spoke to each element that he was in communion with.

Dana muttered darkly to herself. "We should leave while we still have the chance. The city has been obliterated by the Horde. There is nothing left. Light save us, all my friends – gone." Her voice was on the verge of breaking into a stream of choking sobs.

Rhona looked at Dana, her strange and otherworldly face a mixture of despair and sympathy. "Yes, you are right. There is nothing left, and any friends you might have had left in the city are gone. The only thing we can do is find out why and how they died, and make sure this never happens again."

"What do you know about it?" Dana asked.

Rhona and Rajash looked at each other and smiled sadly. "We had family in Shattrah."

Dana stopped crying and looked at them for a moment, then drew in a deep breath. She nodded and stood up, wiping her face with the back of her sleeves. "You are right. Let us keep moving."

After a few minutes of walking they came upon a corpse. It was a human child scarcely above ten years old, lying in a corner of the Alleyway they were taking. The body had taken a purplish hue most apparent in the bleached shirt the boy had worn. Turning up her nose, Serra attempted to flip the body over so that she could get a closer look at the face. As soon as she touched the shoulder, it began to disintegrate under her fingers. Serra was taken aback for a moment. The arcane dust got on her sleeves and she cast an incantation to protect herself from most of the corpse dust. "Fascinating." She said. "The body has been suffused with so much arcane power that it turned into a disenchanted mass." Turning to look at the rest of the party, Serra noticed their aghast faces before the grim reality of what had happened settled down on her. Only a short while ago, the pile of arcane dust had been a living creature with it's hopes and dreams. She held up a hand to her mouth. This was not a field experiment. She was dealing with monsters that were capable of annihilating entire cities.

The next hour was spent steadily moving towards the centre of the city. Serra noticed that they were slowly walking downwards, as if down a crater. The ground had begun to warp as well. Stone, wood, metal and cloth fusing together into an abominable mixture. The place was also full of half evaporating corpses. The wind had begun to disintegrate the bodies that had piled up on the street. Most of it was armour which had survived relatively intact. The purple dust seeping out of the joints told them that the people who had worn the armour were not so fortunate. Serra was now beginning to realise the utter destructive potential of a foe that could use weapons like these. Turning to look at Rhona and Rajash who were walking in the middle of the street, she asked. "Shattrah. What happened there."

Rhona froze, while Rajash looked at Serra for a moment in confusion before he spoke, his low voice fighting with the arcane wind. "We were outnumbered by the orcs. It was decided that we needed to hide. My sister and I were of fighting age. It was decided that we would be of better use when our deception worked. Our parents, and siblings decided to stay in the city. The orcs would think that most of our kind had been wiped out there and we could regroup."

"The orcs destroyed the city?"

"Yes."

"I am sorry."

"It had nothing to do with you, elf."

They knew that much like the Draenei, Serra was not from Azeroth. She had wound up there by accident, much like the Draenei had. She had told the Dragon aspects much, and even now slowly and steadily word of their arrival would spread. She smiled inwardly. A bunch of Tilean and Imperial mercenaries along with a single mage from the White Tower were not the first choice of diplomatic contact.

She was broken out of her reverie by the sounds of screams. Orcish screams from the depths of the crater were rushing up towards them, along with the arcane feedback from powerful magical spells. It would seem that the city still had survivors who were willing to fight the Horde.

Rhona gripped her hammer tightly until her knuckles were bulging. A quick exhalation later she was beginning to run, hammer held aloft and chanting litanies of retribution. They followed her down the rapidly sinking road. At the bottom of the crater, an incredible sight made them stop.

The centre of the city was supposed to hold a human tower for mages. It had crumbled away into little more than a base around which piles of arcane dust lay. A large metallic cylinder lay near the entrance to the tower and the arcane emnations, almost spent told Serra that this was the device that had caused the obliteration of Theramore. Yet that was not the only strange thing that they saw.

Fifty orcs were frozen in place. Dana absent-mindedly hit one of them with a lance of ice, and the orc _shattered_ into hundreds of tiny pieces.

A voice she recognized shouted. "Champions quickly. Slay the orcs. There will be more of them coming."

Standing over a small mound of rubble was Jaina Proudmoore. Something was terribly wrong with her. Her hair which had been once as golden as the sun had turned completely white apart from a small sliver of gold near her temple. Her countenance, once happy and cheerful had turned grim from hatred and despair. She looked more like a human from the old world instead of the cheery and naïve expressions that humans of Azeroth had borne. The change was startling.

Dana looked like she had seen a ghost. After a moment of shock, she shouted. "Lady Proudmoore. Are you alright?"

Jaina Proudmoore simply giggled. There was something profoundly disturbing in that childish sound. From their last meeting, Serra had been impressed by the human mage. Seeing someone like that make an absurd giggle struck her as wrong. This was not how strong people answered questions. It had been her city. A month ago it had been a prosperous port full of tens of thousands of people. Now it was an arcane infused ruin. The human mage simply flicked her fingers and the nearest dozen orcs closest to her shattered.

The spent the next few minutes killing the rest of the frozen orcs. There was no skill involved, just a mindless series of small and effective spells that destroyed the helpless orcs where they were frozen. A few of the last ones were beginning to thaw out. The last one Serra got was almost free and tried to throw an axe at her. She simply sidestepped it and turned the offending greenskin to ash with a spell.

"My lady, we should leave."

"No, I have to recover the Focusing Iris first. It is what allowed _them_ to create an arcane bomb of this much power. Make sure no one interrupts me while I recover it." Jaina had climbed down from her perch and had walked towards the explosive. Serra felt a simple spell being cast on the device that served to dismantle it. Rhona pointed outward and they spread out to cover the ruler of Theramore.

As it turned out, they did not have to wait for long. A group of orcs, around twenty in number ran into the crater to look for their comrades and were immediately set upon by them. Rhona and Rajash were busy being the the thick of things. Rhona did most of the killing, shattering bones and crushing skulls with a hammer while Rajash protected her by beseeching the elements. Dana and Serra made sure that any orcs who tried to break away towards Jaina were dealt with. Once Serra saw the human mage turn an orc into a sheep. Magic on Azeroth was still alien to her. She could spend a lifetime here learning about magic in a stable world like Azeroth and not learn enough.

Her academic thoughts were punctuated with fireballs and arcane blasts that took a brutal toll on the orcs. They were much tougher than the undead, or even the cultists. She was using too much magic trying to keep them away. Due to Jaina's spell, most of the ambient arcane magic was seeping into the bomb. It would seem that she was trying to detach the Focusing Iris from the device. When all this was over, Serra had questions regarding the spell she needed answers to.

When the orcs were defeated, the two siblings hugged each other in a pile of corpses. Serra could empathise. They were the last of their families, and from what little she had heard of the Draenei from her stay in Stormwind, they had nearly been driven extinct by the orcs. It made sense that the two of them would look after each other like family was wont to. They did not have time to celebrate. Jaina's spell had sucked out much of the magical anomalies in the area, and suddenly Serra could hear everything. A cacophony of orcish noises now assailed her ears. It would seem that the screams and shouts had attracted the rest of the orcish looters.

"Fall back. Around Lady Proudmoore." Dana shouted. They ran from the dead orcs and moved to shield her. Rakash's huge frame stood between the human and the noise. Dana stood behind a pile of rubble, while Rhona made her stand on top of the broken battlements that had once been the top of the tower. For her part, Serra cast the spell she had tested on the orcs inside the city. A strong wall made of arcane power surrounded Jaina. She hoped that the human would be done with her spell. In time, her magic would drain the shields Serra had erected to protect her.

Even as the rumble of the marching orc horde approached them, Serra was startled by another sound. She had gotten used to the harsh rhythm of the Horde drums and their slow ominous beats. It was coming from the north and west. What she was hearing now came from the east, and the dockyards. She could swear by the Everqueen that it was shorter, faster paced and she could hear the faint hums of a flute.

The orcs began to charge into the crater with a throaty roar. Rakash summoned the spirits of the wind and fire and created a bolt of lightning that burst through the nearest gaggle of orcs, cooking them from the inside. Despite the grisly fate, the rest of the orcs kept charging at the two draenei. Serra quickly lost count of how many orcs there were, as she was busy holding her own patch of ground. She cast spells of every calibre. Roots would burst forth from the ground to shred orcs. They would have their souls extinguished or pierced by spears made of amber that travelled faster than sound.

None of it mattered. Like a green tide the orcs poured over them and Serra was pushed back slowly and steadily towards Jaina along with every one else. At the very end, some of the orcs broke and ran for a while, while their cohorts cursed and rushed after them. They knew it was a momentary reprieve at best. Orcs, much like the tides could be counted on to return.

To no one's surprise, the few moments of respite were interrupted by the roars of drums and the tramp of heavy marching feet coming from the north. The orcs had regrouped. What seemed like scores of orcs now appeared over the rim of the crater, and barrelled over the crater in a haste to come to grips with them. At their head was a heavily armoured orc, holding an ornate axe. It's head was invisible behind a large cowl made of heavy plate armour. Serra wondered how difficult it would be to cook the brute alive in his shell. It roared and pointed the axe towards them.

The orcs shouted at the command of their leader and kept coming down the crater. Dana and Serra worked together blasting the orcs with a hail of arcane missiles, but the orcs kept coming. She could see their piggish eyes full of malice aimed at them. The memory of Tor Yvresse came back to her, and any fleeting panic she might have felt was drowned in a tide of cold fury. Reaching into her own reserve of magic, she mechanically unleashed a massive barrage of spells that destroyed a number of orcs. Their bodies were incinerated, or their brains were smashed apart by ravening horrors from their deepest dreams.

Meanwhile Serra could not shake off the feeling that something else was out there. In the din of the battle she swore she heard the sound of marching drums. Unlike the deep boom of the orcish drums, this one sounded quicker paced – like the ones used by an Asur army on the march. That was wrong. The Asur would never stoop to using just drums. There would at the very least be trumpets. Straining her ears, hoping against hope that it was a company of keen eyed elves. Her heart sank when she heard the straining notes of a flute. It was an absurd. Just as absurd as expecting an Asur army to come riding to her rescue. The fatigue of the battle was getting to her.

"Kill the half elf you fools!" The orc captain roared in garbled common.

She felt faint. Her magical prowess revolved around the magic she manipulated from the surroundings, instead of her own admittedly meagre reserves. Her hand fumbled for the Potion of Charoi, only to drop it as an orc charged at her. Using the last of her power she eviscerated the creature, but then another one was upon her. She saw it's large maw open wide and jabber in their uncouth tongue.

This was it. Serra of Cothique was going to die to an orc axe in the blasted remains of a human city. A lesser creature would have buckled and tried to run. Not her. She was one of the Asur. The blood of heroes and champions ran in her veins. Her kind had fought for the greater good and made sure that dawn would come in the darkest night. If she was to die, she would face it coming. She remained defiant as the orc raised it's hand to bring the axe crashing down on her head. She inhaled her last breath and stared at her killer.

She heard a large bang, and the orc's face came apart. Buoyed by it's momentum, the still running body crashed into Serra with all the force of a charging horse. She fell down and had the wind knocked out of her lungs by the orc. Struggling to breathe she managed to roll away from the body only to hear the sounds of what seemed like hundreds of footsteps. Then she heard a voice. It spoke in a tone that might have been slightly above conversational, but it carried over the din of the skirmish. "Remember Butcher's Hill!" It said.

Serra's view of the sky was overtaken by fast moving figures that stepped around or over her, shouting in a strange language as they attempted come to grips with the orcs. She was bewildered. The city had fallen. They had to get out of here. Where did a horde of humans come in to clash with the orcs?

"Well, there's a sight you don't see every day. A prissy elf lying down in the dirt." She knew the voice, but it lingered on the edges of memory. There was something about the biting tone that indicated familiarity but Serra could not recall it. A gloved hand reached out to her to help her get up. She grabbed it and was hoisted up none too gently.

Erich Von Peiper stood in front of her, his face wearing a frown. This close to him, she noticed that his steel grey eyes were looking over her shoulders. The hum of battle had increased into a tumultuous roar. The mercenaries had arrived. She had assumed that they had perished in Theramore.

"Are you alright?" The tone was calm and bordered on the friendly. Her mercenary hire was asking about her health.

"Yes." She felt exhausted. Her spellcasting had left her feeling empty.

"Good. Care to join us in the fight?" He might as well be asking if she wanted wine with her breakfast.

Serra simply nodded.

Erich turned around and signalled with his hand. A bald man – Littorio – nodded and shouted, "Gunners. Make ready. Target the orcs on the other side of the crater. On my mark."

Erich turned back to look at her. "You should be covering your ears."

She did as he asked her, and not a moment too soon. The line of handgunners fired in almost perfect unison, hitting the largest mass of orcs on the other side of the crater. The reaction was immediate. Dozens of orcs fell down instantly, their large green bodies a very poor match for blackpowder weapons. Still, they were orcs. The ones that had been grazed got up and began to gather up their weapons to continue the descent into the crater. Many did not get a chance. The gunners fired again, aiming for the thickest part of the horde line. Again and again, they fired, making sure that the orcs were unable to advance in good order so as to reduce their advantage in close quarters combat. It was something the Asur would have done. It still made her uneasy that people of the lesser races were capable of that kind of decision making. Even Teclis, who had the reputation of being a human lover thought of them as a race of shaved apes. Perhaps the Phoenix King was right about them.

Erich was gone in a flash, running into the middle of his men. Serra made to follow them. Humans were notoriously closed minded, and while they might leave Jaina and Dana alone, the two Draenei would probably be killed. She had to warn them that the Draenei were allies. At the edges of her vision, she saw the humans fighting with the orcs. In contrast with the humans of Stormwind and Theramore, Erich's men did look remarkably out of place when fighting. There was no heavy and ornate armour to ward off blows. Cheap and ill fitting plate armour, along with chain mail and ostentatious clothing made all of their armour. Their weapons were also seemed extremely ordinary in contrast with the ornate swords of the city guard.

For all their lack of equipment, the humans of the old world knew how to use it well. Suppressed by the handguns, the orcs were unable to reinforce the wave that had reached the bottom of the crater. They were outnumbered, and the mercenaries knew how to use it well. Groups of two or three men surrounded an orc and attacked from all the sides. Aggressive and bloodthirsty that the orcs were, they would attack, and be cut down mercilessly by the halberds. Erich directed the men away from the orcs climbing down so that the handgunners could have a clear shot at them. Hundreds of men armed with pikes were clambering down the crater, and it was then Serra saw the flaw in Erich's plan.

His men were equipped for pitched battle, not for urban fighting. The halberdiers could hold their own in the mob, but for the pikemen would be a hindrance rather than a help. Erich saw it too. "Luigi, stop. They are going to get chopped up close. Move around the crater. Make sure the green bastards stay inside." A golden haired youth with a sword scrambled downward ahead of the line, trying to get them back up. The rows of pikemen hooted at the at the orcs, but followed the orders Erich gave them.

It also left a massive gap in the lines. The orc captain waved his axe at the base of the tower. "Kill the humans. Bring me the Proudmoore bitch's head." He shouted in common. Heedless of the gunfire, a large group of orcs, with the captain at their head charged down the crater in a mad rush. The gunners reaped a terrible toll them, and by the time the Captain had won through, most of his companions were either a gory mess that were painting the walls of the crater black or being cut down by dozens of halberdiers.

Lady Proudmoore was still dazed from the spell she had cast. She had sat down in the midst of all the chaos by the bomb. Serra's magical barrier had dissipated, the strain too much for her to bear. Dana was too far away, keeping the orcs at bay from the more isolated pockets of the halberdiers, while the two Dranei were fighting at some distance away from the humans, killing orcs with merry abandon. "Erich. Lady Proudmoore is in danger!" She shouted.

Erich nodded, before shouting, "Hans, get that orc."

An older human, wearing a better fitting suit of armour and carrying a slightly more ornate halberd ran towards the orc, with the humans parting to make way from him. He was bulkier than most, and in his heavy set armour reminded her somewhat of the Azerothian humans he had seen. By the time he had reached the orc, the greenskin had almost reached Lady Proudmoore. An arcane barrier, stronger than the one Serra had erected threw the orc back with the violent force of a charging horse. It had scarcely managed to get up when Hans was upon the hulking figure.

Serra was not an expert at the art of physical combat. It was something that a lot of mages looked at with disdain. Even so she thought that Hans was outmatched. He might be strong, but the plate covered orc stood a head taller than him. The axe he had might be shorter than the halberd, but it was much wider and in the hands of the orc seemed to weigh as much as a dagger. His initial thrust foiled, Hans immediately went on the defensive. The agility of the human was typical of their short lived and ungainly race.

Several blows from the orc that would have been dodged with ease by the clumsiest elf were hastily parried by the human. Each blow that he deflected was making him slower. To human eyes, it would seem that the Hans had met his match and he was keeping the orc away from him as he slowly fell back. To Serra's eyes, the outcome had already been decided. The human would eventually lose his footing and meet a swift and bloody end at the hands of the orc.

"They are closely matched." A feminine voice said in Thalassian. Serra did not need to turn her head to recognize Caledra Dawnbreeze. The long eared elf had been useful to her – insofar as learning Common and Thalassian went. She had not expected her to stick around the mercenaries for this long. The people of Azeroth were strange.

"Hans is losing." Serra replied. It was clear to her. His movement was becoming more erratic, and more desperate, while the orc responded to it with a flurry of attacks aimed at debilitating the human further. Hans began to twist and turn, parrying with the blade of his halberd and forgoing any sort of counter attack or jab with the spike of his halberd. On occasion the axe would just miss his limbs.

Caledra's mirth was evident in her voice. "Is that what you think?"

"Is it not? Hans has been on the defensive this entire time, and he is even unable to counter attack the orc. It seems to be rather one sided." Serra replied curtly.

"Some would question if you are on our side or the Horde's." Caledra replied flippantly.

Serra stared at her coldly. "It would not change the outcome of this duel." The long eared elf simply smiled and countered. "You haven't fought much with a blade have you?"

Serra did not answer that. She was right, and Caledra was wrong. As if to lend credence to her view, Hans finally executed a counter attack that was slapped away by the orc. He lost his footing and began to fall over. The orc grinned, tusks glinting through the helmet. "Lok'Tar Ogar, human." It roared as it raised it's axe to kill Hans.

Instead of collapsing to the ground when Serra had expected him to, Hans kept rolling. Curled into a small ball, and with the halberd still in his hand, He rolled clear of the orc's strike before picking himself up and turning to face the orc with a single fluid motion. Meanwhile the orc's strike had shattered some errant masonry. Hans gulped when he saw the damage that blow had wreaked, realising how close he had come to being sliced in half by the greenskin – armour and all. Muttering a prayer to Ulric he came to grips with the orc.

This time however, every move he made was precise and measured. The orc attempted to break his guard several times or just bowl Hans over with it's weight, but this time he was far more careful. Using the Halberd as a pivot, he expertly dodged several blows that would have split him from collar to groin, always keeping just out of the range of the swings. Now it was the orc's blows that were beginning to turn erratic. Angry at being kept at range by the human, the orc began to do unleash a barrage of blows to hit Hans. These were wild swings, aimed to maim and hurt instead of delivering a killing blow. They were also easy to counter. Serra saw Hans do a simple motion with his halberd twice where he parried with the flat of his blade and scored gashes in the orc's armour with the spike on tables had been turned. Faced with the prospect of an easy victory, the orc was getting increasingly infuriated by the human dancing away from his reach.

"Stay still so that I can kill you!" It grumbled in common, as it swung at hans with a terrible slash that he managed to turn aside at the last moment. Then Hans spoke for the first time. "Get that wench out of there. I cannot keep this up for ever." The shout went up in reikspiel, which confused the orc even more. Hans made sure that that it's attention stayed on him, now muttering prayers and shouting insults. The orc flew into an even bigger rage, cutting and slashing at Hans who for his part kept parrying, dodging and lunging in an occasional counter attack.

Then something incredible happened. Enraged by Hans, the orc jumped up in the air and brought down his axe in a downward stroke. It's entire body was behind the strike and Serra was sure if Hans was caught in it, he would be broken into half. Hans simply rolled away behind the orc and dodged the blow. For an instant, he was behind the orc and out of it's field of view. The point of his halberd struck true and stabbed at the orc. It pierced the back of the knee where the armour was lighter and drove through the chain mail with sickening ease. The orc, too enraged to even feel the blow stood up and tried to reach for Hans with it's right arm. Then it stumbled. Hans took the opening and swung his halberd in an arc. The blade of it struck the orc's neck and cleaved through. After a moment the head rolled downward and was replaced by a fountain of dark blood that spurted out. Hans smiled at the sight and raised his halberd.

"Ulric!" he screamed at the sky. To Serra it sounded like the snarl of a wolf.

Everyone, human, orc and even the two Draenei stopped their fighting to see the wild whoop and yell. The sight of the headless orc kneeling in the ground while a diminutive figure cheered was telling. The mercenaries cheered and began to push the orcs with renewed vigour, who for their part lost their lust for battle. They scrambled over each other as they ran up the crater, knowing that their leader was dead and they had lost.

Hans meanwhile sat down and whistled. A powerfully muscled man who wore robes, a breastplate and carried a hammer went up to him and clapped him on the back. The two of them shared a conversation which was too muddled for Serra before the man helped him up. They uncorked a drink and shared it with each other while laughing. The sight reminded her of children who had enjoyed a rare day fooling around instead of being buried in their books.

"Hey, your ladyship" Erich shouted in Reikspiel. "Are those things on our side?" He was pointing to the Draenei.

Serra craned her head to take a look. She could see the looks of concern on the faces of the siblings. "Yes" She replied.

"Are you sure? They look like beastmen to me." Erich shouted back in Reikspiel.

"No, they are not you shaved ape. They have been here killing orcs alongside your kind longer than you have been here." She snapped back. Some of Erich's men tittered while Caledra looked aghast.

"Alright boys, you heard her ladyship. Let them through."

The mercenaries cleared a path for the duo, who began to make their towards Serra. Dana also made her way towards the tower, while Erich's men looked at her darkly. Humans of the Old World were distrustful of magic. They had every reason to be. The human mind and body were incapable of harnessing magic. Even after half a millenium of being taught the way to harness magic properly by Teclis, humanity was fundamentally incapable of using magic. Their grasp of the winds was terrible at best. Fundamentally incapable of combining the winds of magic and prone to mutation, even their necromancy was a pathetic imitation of Dhar. It would be up to her to corral the merchants like an Ellyrion rancher kept his flock together.

Meanwhile Erich had walked up to her, beckoning his underlings to gather around. A small gaggle would soon be forming around her, all the while Jaina Proudmoore was removed from the rest of the world channelling a very visible spell. "Can you fill me in on what is going on out here?"

Serra glared at him. She was exhausted and disheartened. Now the human was going to bother her with irksome questions. Maybe if she answered him quickly he would leave her in peace. "The city has been destroyed."

Erich clenched his cheeks, and looked like he had swallowed something a Witch Elf had given him."That I can see. I was asking you about the blue beastmen and those witches, especially the one who seems to be involved in sorcery."

Serra rolled her eyes, before continuing to look directly at Erich. "The Draenei have been fighting the Ruinous Powers before your kind learned how to light fires. They may call them by other names but our enemies are the same. As for the 'Witch', she is the reason why you are here. That is Lady Jaina Proudmoore, the ruler of Theramore. Now you may notice, that we have failed in defending the city. She is making sure that the Orcs cannot do to any other place what they did to her city."

A sharp exclamation made them both turn around to look at the erstwhile ruler of Theramore.

"Champions, I -" Lady Proudmoore had come out of the trance. She held the Focusing Iris in the palm of her hand. Serra thought it was curious that the thing which had seemed so massive in the Wyrmrest Temple could change it's size. In the temple it was wielded by ancient beings of incredible power to save the world. Now, in the ruins of Theramore, it seemed so tiny and unassuming. But Serra was right. She had seen it work. It could certainly level a city as the orcs had figured out. It was imperative that this weapon be dismantled.

When she had gone to retrieve the focusing iris from the device, they had been surrounded by dozens of orcs and with only a handful of people defending her. Coming out of her trance, she saw the vicinity of the tower swarming with hundreds of humans who were busy tossing orc bodies in ditches. "Who are you people?"

"Mercenaries, your lordship." Erich spoke in a clear voice, while taking off his hat as a show of deference. "Our employer sent us here from Alterac to reinforce the defence of Theramore." He looked around awkwardly for a moment before finishing with, "I apologise that we were not here to defend it from the orcs."

Serra turned around to look at him. His face was stoic, but there was a familiar look in his eyes. She had seen the same look in the faces of poets who would lose themselves in a haze of intoxicants while writing sonnets and songs of the long gone glory of Ulthuan. A look of despair and horror at the incident, coupled with hidden rage and determination to ensure that nothing like this would ever happen again. She was surprised that humans were even capable of feeling emotions as complex as these.

Lady Proudmoore for her part looked at the mercenaries with her deep blue eyes. The warmth that Serra had seen in them a little over a month ago had all but vanished. She stared at the mercenaries with eyes that looked like chips of ice. Serra felt a surge of magic in the woman as she gripped her staff. The sense of power coming from her was incredible. She did not know if it was the Focusing Iris or her latent power, but she was sure that if Jaina so wished, she could eradicate the mercenaries with a single thought. There was nothing Serra could do about it. Even if she was at the peak of her power, the human sorceress outclassed her by a very large margin.

Jaina Proudmoore, thankfully did not do what Serra feared. Laughing bitterly, she simply said. "The best men and women of the Alliance fought here to save my city. Now look at it. The heart of the Alliance, now a smoking crater. What could you and your men have done?"

"We could have killed more orcs." Erich replied with a shrug. It sounded juvenile, but Erich stood in the middle of a crater that was filled with the bodies of orcs that his men had dispatched. As far as convincing arguments went, he stood in a hole filled with them.

"And what good will that accomplish? We threw the orcs back from the walls, only for Hellscream to annihilate my city." She shot back, with a voice filled with venom.

Erich put his cap on and looked straight at her. "Nothing. The dead can only be honoured – and avenged."

"How can I do that? I led them to their doom. I trusted the Horde to settle for peace when Deathwing fell. Now my city lies in ruins, and even the bodies cannot be buried. Those monsters. Look at what they did to my people! Look at what they to Kinndy!" She sank to her knees again and pointed at a small pile of arcane dust at her feet. Someone close to her had been turned to dust.

"I am a mercenary, your ladyship. I know little of honour."

"And what about avenging the people of Theramore?" It was a desperate question that sounded like a final plea for help.

Erich simply replied. "I believe that I can help you with that."

"Capitan, Luigi's patrol found something." A soldier, tilean by his accent shouted from the lip of the crater.

"What is it?"

"Standards sir. We found an orc contraption and they were all lying around."

A quarter of an hour later, Serra was part of a small group of people that were moving in the northern part of the city. Erich, Hans, the the bald man with the warhammer and Littorio were the men he had chosen to go with him. Jaina, for her part had chosen Rhona and her party, along with Captain Dawnbreeze. The northern part of the city was little better than the tower. There as something eerie about the buildings. Most of them were little more than a pile of rubble, and the skeletal remains that stood reminded her of Nagarythe.

Occasionally a human face, haggard and worn and wearing a helmet or a cap would look up to stare. They mostly stared at the Draenei before saluting when they noticed Erich. The mercenaries were spread out and were busy looking for any enemy. The humans were loud, but there was something comforting about their sound. It was better than the the silence that they had faced when they had first entered the city.

They saw the orc contraption after a while. It was hard to miss. A gaggle of orc corpses and a few human ones surrounded it. It belched smoke and shivered as though it was alive with a life of it's own. At least thirty human surrounded it, alternatively looking down the street and at the machine. It had spiked wheels and was decorated with tusks and skulls. It seemed that the orcs of Azeroth were advanced than their old world counterparts, but shared the same shared aesthetics. A human stood apart from the others, his golden hair flowing down his neck and shoulders, giving orders to the men. He turned to look and Serra saw that he held a bundle of cloth in his hands. Their golden edges and white background told her that these were the standards the mercenaries had recovered. As far as humans went, he was pleasant to look at.

Jaina froze as she saw the man holding the banners. A mixture of horror and surprise covered her face. It looked as though she had seen a ghost. The man – Luigi – walked up to her and held out the bundle. "The standards, My lady." His voice was sombre as though he understood the meaning of the gesture. For her part, Jaina simply clapped a hand to her face. She said a single sentence that stuck around in her head. "Arthas, is that you?"

* * *

 _ **A/N Sorry about the delay. The new DLC for TWWH2 came out and I was busy playing it. Updating mods is hard work, and IRL stuff also got in the way.**_

 _ **Solarblaster, He has more than a little resemblance to Arthas which would be pretty disconcerting if anyone who ever knew the Prince or his likeness saw it. The guest who responded to you has the right idea.**_

 _ **Speaker of Babbel, you are going to find out soon. Religion may also be involved.**_

 _ **John092, well I write whenever I have time to.**_

 _ **Rylomakin81, yeah. I look forward to writing the next chapter.**_

 _ **Axccel, That is how the High Elves in Warhammer operate. They make money off humans and give them some little help, but it is mostly due to keeping humans as the front line against Chaos.**_

 _ **Machcia, who knows.**_

 _ **CaptnDetergent, 40k is far more popular and recognizable. Still, I think that I got a good reception to the story. I mean I have the third highest follows in the category. Are you planning on writing a story?**_


	40. Chapter 40

**Preparing for Battle**

* * *

Erich sat Luigi's tent, listening to the comforting normalcy of the camp. This was his home. Erich always felt ill at ease tucked in a real bed. It was too inviting, as though trying to lull his senses into a false sense of security. Cold Wine, Warm Women and soft beds were all most mercenaries looked forward to after a hard day of fighting, but it was the lot of their captains to look out for the well being of their men. It was something Borgio had told him the day Valdoz had passed away. His carefree days of looting, raping and being a nuisance were gone. Now he had to behave like a general leading a mob. The picture of Borgio standing in front of him in his brazen armour as like a statue of some bygone heroic had stuck with Erich until this this very moment. Even the undefeatable Borgio, who could not be killed by cannon balls had finally died – poisoned on a silken bed. It had been a stark reminder to Erich that even the best among them could be slain when their guard was down.

Caledra's niece had refreshed that reminder with Rodrigo's death. It still galled him to think that the death of a close comrade was needed to jar him back to the real world. His father had always thought of him as fay and wan. A soft spoken scholar who lacked the guts to be a real soldier. Perhaps as he got older, he was becoming what the old man was afraid of. He focused too much on Caledra and the way her hair blew in the sea breeze or the soft sound of her voice as they engaged in conversation. Yes. Elves were undeniably attractive, but they were extremely arrogant as a race as well. Caledra might be different, but there was no way he could approach her. It was better to focus on the iron certainties of life. And he certainly had been neglecting that in favour of acting like an adolescent staring a girl his own age.

"You wanted to see me Capitan?" Luigi's voice broke in. His silhouette was visible in the small rectangle of light that showed the entry to Erich's tent.

"Have the scouts returned?" Erich asked.

"Yes, they just got past the sentries. They should be reporting to you soon."

"Very well, get everyone here, all the officers, the sailors and Her Ladyship. Oh, and those blue 'Draenei' as well."

Luigi's posture stiffened for a moment before he saluted and left. Erich was left alone for a few minutes to muse over a map of the Dustwallow Marshes. And there was much to ponder over.

Just after recovering the standards of the Theramore Garrison, his men had discovered something even more interesting. Luigi, being the clever young man that he was had sent some of the quicker men out of the city gates to see if there were any orcs in the vicinity. They had found still warm bodies of orcs, running _away_ from the city, with arrows fletched in them. The mystery was solved when what seemed like dozens of Night elves emerged from the swamps. Much like Lady Swiftarrow's warriors, they were stunning to behold. Taller than his men – taller than him – with bodies that seemed to be sculpted by the finest hands to ever pick up a hammer and chisel. They blended nearly perfectly in the swamps and mangroves that surrounded the ruins of Theramore.

Lady Proudmoore had an emotional reunion with what remained of her garrison. It would seem that Shandris Feathermoon and Vereesa Windrunner had left the city to harass the besiegers some time before the city was destroyed. Sensing that it was not their place to intrude on her grief, Erich busied himself setting up an encampment for the two thousand soldiers that were now coming on shore.

The ruined city was out of the question. There was an ill wind that blew through the city, and men swore that they could hear the wails of the dying. Erich had heard stories of Praag. Sacked by the ravening hordes of Asavar Kul, the city was still said to be haunted, half a millennium later. The walls of the rebuilt city was twisted into grotesque shapes and patterns. On dark nights, monsters would emerge from the walls to prey on the souls of the living. This place – Theramore- was infinitely worse than Praag had been. Erich doubted that anything would ever grow on this rock. He would see magical discharge flicker momentarily before dissipating. Staying here would drive them mad. Theramore was doomed for an eternity, and what happened to the poor souls who had been destroyed by the Mana bomb, Erich shuddered to think.

Instead, they were encamped around the ruins of a tower that guarded the entrance to the city. The sentinels and rangers had scouted it, and it was big enough to fit his small force. Sentries were placed along the road to challenge any intrusion and alert the camp. His men were not part of the sentries along the perimeter, of course. They were resting after the hard labours of the day. Erich was pleased with his men. In contrast to the brutish violence of the orcs, the men of the empire had been the perfect picture of human discipline. Working in pairs of triads, they overwhelmed the prodigious strength of the greenskins with careful defensive pokes and cuts. Not a single man had fallen, and no one would die of their wounds. The strange blue beastmen were making sure of that.

Serra had told him that the creatures- Draenei- were opposed to chaos in all it's forms. He did not trust her. After all it was the nature of elves to seduce and destroy humans by any means necessary. After conferring with Phillip, he decided to let them work their magic on his people. That had been several hours ago. Erich hoped that he would not wake up at night to see a horde of deformed mutants burning down the encampment.

Now all he had to do was sit in his camp, looking at a large map of the Dustwallow marsh. The place reminded him of the swamps to the north of Miragliano. The road they were on was the only way to the northern lands called the Barrens – homeland of the orcs. A strategic fortress – Northwatch – had been the first line of defence. It had been overrun soon by the orcs with extreme ease. If the greenskins held the fortress, it would be all but impossible to dislodge them from there. The only cannons he had were light artillery from the _Lady Mehley._ The ship's captain grumbled about it, but had agreed to provide him with the eight light cannons that made up the ship's armament.

Two thousand men, a handful of mages and eight cannons. As far as mercenary forces went, this was the most he could realistically command. He would have to rely on the group of officers he had trained. Morley was solid and dependable – if unimaginative. Erich would lay out a plan, and Edward would follow it to the letter. Lorna Crowley was intelligent, and was quite capable of acting on her own. The only problem was Josiah Miller. The man was mediocre in nearly all respects of initiative. Erich had chosen him because he was the most reasonable of the throng of fanatics.

The zeal of the people of Lordaeron reminded him of a church congregation in Nuln. The cult of Sigmar might not be the most populous in the shining jewel of the Empire, but it was among the most zealous. Religious riots were not as uncommon as the Countess would like to pretend. There was a light in the eyes of the Lordaeron peasantry that reminded Erich of the fanaticism of flagellants. A heady mix of religious conviction and utter disregard for self that sent a shiver up his spine. The worship of Myrmidia taught him to think with his mind, not with his heart. Fanatics were the antithesis of what his worship taught him. It remained to be seen how well the Scarlet crusaders would fight. They certainly had a military air about them and could march at a pace that would have put them at par with Empire State Troopers.

As if on cue, his officers entered the tent. They stood at attention for a moment, before Erich pointed to some chests and barrels for them to sit on. Morley held his helmet under his arm, while running his fingers through his dark brown hair. There was a sombre look on his face. Lorna looked similarly grim. Erich noticed that she wore a fresh rose in her hair. Her blunderbuss was holstered on her back with a strap of leather. Gilneans loved their guns in a manner that reminded Erich of Hochlanders. In contrast, Miller was extremely livid. His brown eyes radiated murder and vengeance. Erich had seen the same in the eyes of fanatics rioting in the streets. A complete and utter disregard for life, and safety. Men of faith would say that those were the eyes of martyrs. To Erich, those were the eyes of men who would break their own lines in desperate attempts to come to grips with the enemy.

"Take a seat. The scouts will be back soon." Erich said. They sat on some of the nearest boxes, and looked over the map.

"How are the men doing?" He continued.

"Worried." Morley answered. "Vengeful." came Miller's response. "Drowsy." Crowley completed her report.

Erich snorted. He had expected just as much from his recruits.

Just then several figures entered the tent, breaking off the conversation. Any questions Erich might have had of his officers were chased out of his mind as he beheld the newcomers. They certainly were a sight worth seeing.

Shandris Feathermoon was taller than Erich by at least half a head. A figure, alluring and lethal was hidden behind a long cloak made of what seemed like well worn leather. Hair, the colour of indigo blue in colour framed sharp and narrow face. A mask covered most of her face, but combined with the light in his tent, it had the effect of mystification. In contrast to her otherworldly appearance, Caledra and the other High Elf seemed ordinary as they flanked her. From his extensive experiences in brothels, Erich knew that a man's eyes would go towards the night elf and drink in her appearance.

"You asked for us, Grand Captain?" She asked in common.

Erich was taken aback for a moment before he composed himself. This sort of romantic admiration of elves would be the death of him. They were as strange to humanity as orcs. He desperately needed a whore. This needed to be remedied at the earliest. When he was back in the Eastern Kingdoms, he would rut till he was exhausted. "Yes. I want to know about the disposition of any orcs nearby."

She stepped in front of the map and pointed a long finger at the place Erich had marked on the map.

"The Horde rearguard is camped around Northwatch. There are three to four thousand strong orcs, a few goblins and perhaps a dozen of so shamans."

"Have they fortified themselves in the fortress?"

"No. They seem interested in destroying the fortifications. We spotted some of the goblin sappers placing charges along the wall. Once it is done, they will probably leave what remains of the place as a pile of rubble." Another voice in the room said. A second figure walked up to Shandris' side and looked at Erich with not too cheerful eyes.

In her way, Vereesa Windrunner was just as beautiful as a woman Erich had ever seen. Silver hair crowned her slightly tanned face and hard blue eyes stared back at him. Despite them belonging to an elf, Erich knew the look in them quite well. The eyes of someone who had lost family recently. A vacant stare, hardened by the burning desire for revenge. The information she brought was troubling.

"Do they have any artillery?" From Erich's experience, greenskin artillery was rudimentary at best, but devastating nonetheless.

Thankfully, the Orc Horde lacked any artillery. The elven rangers had found the track marks of orcish siege engines that led into and away from the camp. No doubt the Orc lord was going to take them back to it's stronghold to celebrate it's brutal destruction of the city.

"How well armed are they?"

"The core of the rearguard is made up of Kor'kron veterans. They are heavily armed and well protected. Much of the army is made up of orc warriors from Orgrimmar and the rest of Durotar. They are not very well equipped. Mostly axes and shields with a few scraps of hide to call their own. A few goblins with guns make up most of their ranged firepower."

Erich scratched his head. Goblins with guns. This was something unheard of. A new problem, but not necessarily something that needed to be addressed. The power of guns was not in their discharge, but in the volley of fire. Withering, fast, and decently accurate. "How disciplined are they?"

The two elves looked at each other before turning to him and raising an eyebrow in unison. "Discipline?"

"Can they form a firing line. Do they fire by rank or in volleys. Do they act as skirmishers or as support to help the advance of the orcs?" This information was important in how he would arrange his troops.

Before the two elves could answer, a commotion outside the tent caused Erich to stand up. Hans' booming voice was sounding over the rest, and he found the sound irksome. Hans walked in, talking to Littorio about some inane things that Erich could not be bothered to listen to. He snapped his fingers and brought them closer.

"Where is Luigi?" He asked them.

"He is looking for that pointy eared bitch and the coven of witches and Beastmen. If only the good Gentlemen of the Order of the Silver Hammer could see us now." Hans replied with a deadpan voice. A muscle in his cheek twitched. Erich caught his eye and the tension lasted for a moment before the two of them burst out laughing. In the Empire, the two of them would have been burned at the stake twice over for this, Even Littorio smiled at the exchange. Being a mercenary meant mocking death and accepting it. Brothers in arms they were, and brothers in death they would be.

"No matter." He continued in common. "Tell me about the terrain around Northwatch."

"As you can see, the fortress secures – secured – passage into the Barrens." Vereesa Windrunner was speaking now. "Northwatch is surrounded by sand, marsh and a single road that leads to Theramore." Quick as lightning she brought out a knife and in a silver flash she had hurled it at the location of Northwatch Keep. She produced another knife. "There is nothing in this place but marshes, sand and death." Her hands trembled as she gripped the handle of the knife as she raised it again. Despair was written across that beautiful face, and Erich felt a rush of nausea oncoming. He had seen similar scenes too many times.

"Forgive me for asking, my lady. Did you lose someone close in Theramore?"

The facade cracked. The veil of angst was blown away. Raw sorrow, all to familiar to Erich took it's place. Vereesa Windrunner sobbed silently for a moment, a pale hand on her mouth. "By the Sunwell, they took Rhonin from me. There isn't even a body left. What am I going to tell the twins?" She continued to cry.

Erich was saved from further awkward questions about this Rhonin when the flap in his tent opened and his second-in-command finally entered. Luigi was not alone. The erstwhile ruler of Theramore was at his side, leaning on to him for support. The wizarding staff was not with her. With her eyes half closed, she looked like the subject of a painting. An elegant and stately figure, weighed down by the cares placed upon her by the world. Paired with Luigi, she reminded Erich of the popular image of Countess Emanuelle Von Liebwitz. Beautiful even as she advanced in years, she took to the balls in her palace alongside a dashing officer or young noble that had taken her fancy. Luigi Von Pavona certainly was dashing.

"Vereesa?" Lady Jaina Proudmoore spoke. Every head in the tent turned to look at her. Her voice commanded attention with every inflection and cadence. When she spoke, people would listen. Erich was impressed.

The two women walked over, human and elf, and hugged each other. Vereesa Windrunner broke down in Jaina Proudmoore's arms and her soft sobs were the only sounds in the tent for a short time. The sadness in the air was palpable. Erich detested it. Now was a time for action, not for tears. After a few minutes, he cleared his throat. The noise was enough. Everyone turned to look at him.

"Lady Windrunner. I believe I speak for all of us here when I offer you condolences for the loss you have suffered so recently." He paused. He wanted her out of the tent, but broaching the subject was a difficult matter. "Perhaps you should rest for a while. You have been scouting the orcs for hours now."

To her credit, Vereesa saw through his admittedly clumsy attempt. She stopped sobbing and looked straight at Erich. There were daggers in those eyes, no less sharp than the one she had placed on the map. "If you want me to leave, _Grand Captain_ , then say so."

"I did not say that, my lady. I understand -"

She walked over to him with terrifying speed a short blade in her hand. "Do you? Do you know what it is like to have your husband torn away from you in an instant?" There was murder in those bright blue eyes of hers. Her blade was pointed straight at Erich's throat.

Hans swore loudly and reached for his halberd. Erich raised a hand. He had seen the speed with which the White haired elf had moved. Hans was an excellent fighter, but in the dim light of the tent and with a halberd, there would be one winner in a contest of arms. Instead he focused his eyes on her. "The orcs took my home away from me. All these years I have wandered from place to place, selling my skills to the highest bidder, hoping to earn enough money to earn my way back. I have buried friends and brothers in different lands." He batted the sword away with his index and middle finger.

"And how many orcs have you killed?" Lady Proudmoore had appeared at Vereesa's side, laying a hand on her shoulder. There was a hardness in her eyes that Erich was well familiar.

"Not nearly enough."

* * *

Caledra was impressed at the audacity of what Erich suggested. If she had not fought alongside him, she would have thought him mad. Part of her still thought his plan to be mad. She was not the only one. Jaina Proudmoore, Vereesa Windrunner and Shandris Feathermoon threw a bevy of objections. For the past hour, Erich had been steadily and systematically dismantling their arguments. It was like listening to a magister telling his pupils why their notes about spellcasting were wrong. What surprised her was that there was no mention of honour, or glory, or the highest ideals that warriors and heroes held dear. Erich Von Peiper had reduced the battlefield into a series of figures and weighed them before everyone present.

Now she stood in Jaina Proudmoore's tent while the ruler of theramore sipped from a goblet of wine. The small room reminded her of a stereotype of a scholar. An array of book racks, stuffed to the brim with tomes drew any visitor's eye. Expensive rugs covered the floor and there was barely any empty patch of ground inside the tent. The ruler of Theramore was a powerful and accomplished mage, Caledra knew, but it still astounded her with the ease the human used magic. Most magisters she had known in Quel'Thalas would have struggled with a spell of this magnitude.

"Please, Captain. Take a seat." Lady Proudmoore said. Shandris Feathermoon and Vereesa Windrunner were talking to each other. As she passed by them, Caledra heard the core of their conversation.

"Are the rumours true then? A double of the Lich King was present at the battle?" Shandris asked in Thalassian

"I would not have believed it if I had not seen it. Shandris, it is not just the looks. Yes, the man looks like a dead ringer for Arthas, but his posture, the way he brushes his hair, the way he smiles, laughs and jokes with the men under his command make him look like Arthas in the flesh. Jaina says that it reminds her of the time they were investigating the Cult of the Damned." Vereesa replied.

"Just water, Lady Proudmoore." Jaina raised a hand and A skin of water appeared in the air, before pouring itself into another empty goblet. Caledra picked it up and sipped it. Cold water, fresh from a mountain spring.

"I have some questions regarding those mercenaries. You are the person with the most experience when it comes to dealing with them." She smiled at Caledra, who returned that smile. Jaina Proudmoore was a human of legendary beauty. She had heard rumours that even Prince Kael'Thas had been infatuated with her. Now, her golden hair had turned white, except for a sliver near her forehead, and her face was lined with pain.

Caledra nodded, and braced herself for the question.

"Are the mercenaries any good?" Vereesa and Shandris stopped their conversation to turn and look at the two of them.

"What do you mean, My Lady?"

"They look thin, and well – underfed. Their armour seems to be of exceptionally mediocre make. Even their elite soldiers with the halberds are not as armoured as Alliance footmen."

"They fight well enough my lady. These mercenaries are the reason why Alterac has returned to the fold of the Alliance in many years. I fought alongside them during the battles of Pyrewood, Alterac City and Strahnbrad. They held their own against the Crushridge Ogres. They gave Sylvanas Windrunner her most crushing defeat since the invasion of Quel'Thalas." Vereesa tensed at the mention of her sister. It was she who asked the next question.

"The leader. Is he mad?"

Caledra started. "What? What makes you think that?"

"Several questions. He is marching upon a bigger Horde army, that might be fortified at Northwatch. The only artillery we will have are light cannons he scavenged from _Lady Mehley_. The ground he has chosen leaves no place for a retreat."

"I believe he answered your questions at the war council." Caledra suddenly felt a surge of anger. Erich had answered these questions an hour ago.

"Oh, he sounded very convincing. That still doesn't explain how he expects us to do our part. What makes you think that the orcs will take the bait?"

"During the invasion of Quel'Thalas – the one during the second war – we used to lure the orcs into ambushes. Alleria led us well, and she never wavered, not even when -"

"Not even when it cost us Windrunner spire." Vereesa completed her sentence.

"Do you have any other questions from me?"

"Just one more." Jaina Proudmoore stood up, draining the wine in her goblet. "These mercenaries. Where are they from? Specifically, where is the second in command from?" Serra noticed that her hand shook a little as she mentioned Luigi. Alexa's comment about him looking like the spitting image of Arthas Menethil returned to her.

Caledra looked at her. "From what I can tell, they had been sailing westward for weeks when they got caught in a storm. They must have sailed into the channel and ended up in the sea south of Southshore. There are two different men. The rank and file come from a land called Tilea. Erich and the men with the halberds come from a land to the north of Tilea, that they call the Empire. As for the second-in-command, I know nothing about him save the fact that he looks up to Erich as an older brother, who in turn has similar feelings for him."

"It is like Varian and Arthas all over again." Vereesa muttered.

"And what about the half-elf, Serra?"

"She is as much of an enigma to them as she is to me, My lady."

Jaina snapped her fingers and the pitcher of wine disappeared. "Strange. The Forbidding Sea has never been explored before. It would make sense that there might be lands beyond our own to the east."

That finished the interrogation. Caledra felt awkward. Logically Jaina Proudmoore had the right to ask her these questions. She was a leader of the Alliance, and Caledra was duty bound to answer her. At the same time, she had fought alongside the mercenaries. They fought well. No, they did not fight well. There was no finesse in their attacks or parries. They fought together. Four men, each a mediocre fighter working together were more than a match for a single warrior. The trust they had in each other must have been phenomenal.

The nods and smiles as she passed through the camp put her mind at ease. In contrast to the humans of the Alliance, they were distrustful of other races. The fact that they were accepting of her was something she had accomplished through her hard work. There was little singing and merrymaking in the camp that night. Before dawn, they would all be marching northward towards Northwatch Keep. They were trying to fall asleep.

As she got into her tent, her ears picked up the sound of two humans talking to each other. Phillip and Erich were conversing, straining to keep their voices down. She strained her ears and listened to them with as much clarity as if she was standing between them.

"...they make me feel uneasy all the same." Phillip sounded agitated.

"So you say that you could sense no wrong with them, but they make you feel uneasy all the same. That is not worth much." Erich sounded tired and bored. "At the same time, they healed my men. Wounds that would have killed will be gone by tomorrow. They will be fighting fit."

"The Deus Sigmar teaches us that magic is inherently corrupting. They have horns coming out of their heads Erich, and the cloven hooves. Remember the tapestries of Ulricsberg, when Sigmar fought with our forefathers to banish the hordes of Chaos."

"Magnus the Pious would disagree with you. Karl Franz and Volkmar would laugh at you. The Supreme Patriarch would turn you into gold and then melt you down and sell you to Marienburgers. Magic helps make the Empire strong. "

A sharp intake of breath came from the priest. "Three things make the empire great -"

"Faith, Steel and Gunpowder. Yes, I know the old chestnut. Do you know how important the Lore of Metal is to the making of the latter two? Every year we build better cannons and safer gunpowder. They say that in a decade blackpowder will be gone completely, replaced by safer explosives. We must not let our fears consume us."

"They look like demons Erich. We must trust to our senses."

Erich spoke sharply. "If we trusted our senses, Phillip. Ergrimm Von Horstmann would be Patriarch of the College, Altdorf would be in the shape of the Eight Pointed star, and we would be dead. Use your head. Serra says that these 'Draenei' are not demons, and she has spent the most time alongside them. You saw them fight the orcs with your own eyes."

"The elves are not to be trusted. The Dwarfs, who we should always strive to help, advise us to be wary of the elves. Treachery is in their veins."

A smack on the head. "It doesn't matter you fool." Erich hissed. "Look around you. These demons travelled with Serra and that entire crew of humans on a ship, for weeks on end without incident. The ruler of Theramore trusts them as much as she trusts the human that accompanies them. They fight orcs with a fury rivalling the dwarfs. This is a strange land Phillip. It stands to reason that our allies will be the same. Now go to bed. We have a few hours of sleep left before we get back on the road. Our ancient foes await us at the end."

Caledra lay down and tried going to sleep. A few hours of rest was all she needed. At the same time, the few snippets of information she had found about the empire was interesting. What strange dark lands they had come from she did not know. It sounded frightening. People looking behind their shoulders for demons or their pawns. Orcs destroying entire kingdoms. They sounded like they were engaged in an eternal war, both inside and out. At the same time, she was glad that she would be fighting alongside them. She had seen the anger in the mercenaries' eyes when they had seen the ruins of Theramore. They would fight to the bitter end against the orcs.

All they had to do now was to meet the army of the Horde, drunk on it's victory over Theramore.

* * *

 _ **Blinded in a Bolthole, who knows? time will tell**_

 _ **medchtsia, yeah he is going to be mighty confused**_

 _ **Archaicx1, Erich is not much of a mage**_

 _ **John092, Thanks for the support**_

 _ **Drakenheim, Well, Asur are supposed to be extremely arrogant.**_


	41. Chapter 41

**Opening Shots**

* * *

Serra felt energised. For the first time in a two centuries, she felt fully awake after a very short sleep. The sensation of her heart beating rapidly within her chest as it pumped blood to her extremities was intoxicating. Part of her chafed at being forced to take orders from a lowly human, but part of her enjoyed the challenge from a purely academic perspective. Like most mages Serra had started at sea calming wind and water elementals by binding the winds of magic. It had been exciting for precisely a week before she began to feel bored. Long stretches of inaction, punctuated by wild bursts of spellcasting had been tiring had been the order of the day..

Becoming a battle mage had been similar. Weeks upon weeks of marching, punctuated by a day of casting spells at the enemy. She had killed many of the Druchii or Norscan raiders from afar and up close. Each battle usually left her feeling drained and tired. Teclis and Belennaer had compared it to running a sprint. Her generals and commanders had always treated her with care. Each High Elf life was precious, and trained mages were worth an army of their own. The height of her career had come when she had been commended by no less a personage than Prince Tyrion himself. The Everqueen's Consort was known as the bane of Malekith and their greatest commander in a thousand years. Her star had risen well in Finubar's court since then, culminating in the wretched set of circumstances that had left her stranded in another world, with no way to get back.

Erich Von Peiper was not Prince Tyrion. Serra doubted he knew the power that magic users could command. His orders to them were pathetic enough to elicit a private laugh from her. The mages, human and Draenei were ordered to support a unit of his soldiers, in any way they best saw fit. As the battle would continue, the soldiers would move to form a more defensive posture, and the mages would be free to do what they wanted. His commands for the group were incredibly mundane. Everyone except Serra had been ordered to negate enemy magics. Humans of the old world had an instinctive distrust of magic, due to their easily corruptible bodies and minds. It made sense for them to keep magic as far away from them as possible.

Her task was different. Erich had stumbled upon the fact – like all humans are eventually wont to regarding their betters– that she was a powerful wielder of magic. She had to shroud the entire force on the march. There was a small hillock near Northwatch, abandoned by the horde, commanding a good view of the area surrounding it. A feature so insignificant that it was forgotten by both sides in this war. The swamps of Dustwallow marsh surrounded it on three sides, making military manoeuvres all but impossible. To even the odds further, Erich had managed to cajole the captain of _Lady Mehley_ to part with six of his lightest cannons and ammunition. The captain was angry, but Lady Proudmoore had backed up Erich.

Personally Serra detested gunpowder. There was no skill or subtlety in it. Like the humans, their greatest weapon was rough, smelly and ugly. To the surprise of precisely no one, they had also been handed down the secret from the dwarfs. It seemed fitting for mankind to stand upon the shoulders of the elder and eldest races, and claim that they did the lion's share of fighting the dark powers of the north. They were just as likely to fall to them as fight against them. The countless norscans that had attempted to invade Ulthuan were proof enough.

Still, as far as plans went Serra had to grudgingly admit that Erich had the makings of a good plan. The orcs outnumbered them two to one. They were stronger, would undoubtedly be in high spirits and better supplied after the fall of Theramore. The orc shamans outnumbered the mages three to one, although Serra knew as much as anyone that numbers did not matter in magic. This would be doubly true for a place like Azeroth, where magic was inherently stable. If Erich had not been cursed with the shortcomings of his race, he would have used them to their fullest potential. Instead they were to be passive, focusing on defending the soldiers from the orc shamans. The critical part of the battle lay in the march. Erich planned on walking under the Greenskin's noses and deploy on the hill. That was where she came in.

Serra dressed herself in a dress of blue mageweave – a magically enhanced silken material that felt almost immaterial on her body – that was entirely too immodest for her taste. They reminded her of the dresses worn during balls and feasts in Lothern or Avelorn. Part of her felt that it left too much of her thighs and legs exposed. Her shoulders and the curve of her breasts were left bare as well. The dress was impractical for battle, and seemed designed for rich human women to show off their vulgar bodies to their menfolk. On her, it elevated her to the status of a goddess, as she found out as soon as she left her tent. Humans, both men and women turned to look at her. Some of them whistled. A small spark of magic, designed to sting instead of causing us harm reminded them of their manners. The bitter wind flowing seaward made her shiver and Serra cast a small spell that protected her against the weather and repelled dust. It was an extremely weak version of a magical barrier that repelled physical harm. If the worst came to worst, she could reinforce the spell and become immune to the most savage of blows.

She saw that the camp had nearly been broken up. Rows upon rows of humans stood in orderly rows with bits and pieces of the camp in backpacks. Their pikes and gun barrels glimmered solftly in the starlight, and there seemed to be an awful stillness in the air. They were eager to be away. Hands nervously gripped the wooden stocks or pike butts while the humans muttered about themselves. From the few snatches of conversation Serra picked up on, there was a suppressed sense of excitement in the ranks. All of the humans she passed by were champing at the heel to get to grips with the orcs. They were the ones who cast lascivious looks at her. Serra sighed inwardly. She now looked like a strumpet. Next time she was back at Stormwind, she would be buying her own dresses instead of listening to a concierge.

In contrast to the Azerothian humans, the men of the old world seemed to exude an aura of extreme callousness and boredom. They knelt, squatted and relieved themselves. The smell of alcoholic spirits permeated the air and even managed to penetrate her protective wards Their voices were louder, their jokes cruder, and the sights fixed upon her were largely of hostility. Serra could respect that. Humans and Elves had a tenuous relationship in the Old World. She could now see why Teclis was so fond of humans. Brutal, short and ugly they may be, they knew how to fight like thinking creatures. They were rough echoes of the White Lions. The guard of Phoenix King were famed for preening their hair and exercising on the battlefield in the sight of the foe. Any remaining shred of doubt she had for the battle disappeared. The Horde would soon enough face a foe that would not be cowed by their raw strength.

A powerfully muscled man with a shaved scalp walked up to Serra. He took her appearance with a disinterest that was surprising. His bulging biceps struggled against the coarse material of the robes he wore. The only thing of value he carried were his weapon – a warhammer that was steel inlaid with silver. It was a human weapon. Blunt and rough. The other was a bronze pendant in the shape of a hammer that hung about his neck with a chain of beaten gold. A priest of Sigmar.

"The Captain requests your presence at the front. He has orders for you during the march." Then he was gone. Serra saw that the mercenaries had a sense of respect for him. Men would stand up straight while he walked past them.

Erich was standing at the front of the line, listening to a High Elven ranger who wore fine chainmail, darkened so that it would not reflect light and a cowl that covered his face. Serra's ears picked up the Thalassian he spoke in.

"Tell him that we have patrols watching for any Horde scouts. If they march as fast as he says they can, they should reach the outskirts of Northwatch by the time night begins to fall."

The high elf – Captain Dawnbreeze – translated in fluent Reikspiel. Erich nodded sagely and saluted the scout, who returned it before disappearing into the gloom. She walked over towards Erich, only to notice that he was not alone. The heroes who had sailed from Stormwind were there, along with Jaina Proudmoore. He took in Serra's appearance for a moment before speaking.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, if you would please move to the centre of the line, between Miss Crowley and Mister Morley's regiments, we can begin our march."

They slowly began to shuffle towards the centre, with the exception of Jaina. She looked at Erich with a face that would refuse to take no for an answer. "I refuse. The Horde Destroyed my city. I will march in the vanguard."

Erich rolled his eyes before muttering in Reikspiel. Serra's ears caught what he said. "Myrmida save me, I am too sober for this argument." Then he nodded brusquely.

As Serra turned away to follow the rest of the party down the line, her ears caught something else. The drummer at the front of the line began to play a quick beat, suitable for marching and after a few seconds a flute began to accompany it. The half drunk mercenaries straightened up with an impressive speed and formed up into a marching column with their pikes, handguns and halberds at the ready. Then with a song on their lips, the column began to move.

Serra ran towards the party. They were going to war. It would be unbecoming of the rigid discipline of an Asur battlemage if she was out of position.

* * *

Vereesa and Shandris had mentioned in passing that they had fought hard with the Horde forces advancing through the twisting path and swamps of Dustwallow Marsh. She now saw it first hand. The Horde had erected cairns and and tombs for their fallen. The toll taken on the aggressors were mostly seen by the size of the funeral pyres and mounds that were at a distance from the road. Hundreds of weapons were placed on the mounds, as a final farewell to the warriors who had paid the ultimate price for their victory.

The Alliance forces were not so lucky. In contrast to the care with which the warriors of the Horde were buried, the Alliance bodies had been stripped naked and left to rot. Their arms and armour had been taken as war loot and trophies, as were several heads. They passed by the ruined hulk of a tower that had bodies of the defenders stacked in a careless manner. They were all naked – men, women, humans, elves and the occasional dwarf or halfling. Scavengers, both aerial and swamp dwelling would occasionally feast on the bodies. Caledra saw a pair of massive crocolisks drag half a dozen bodies into the swamps in a fell swoop. She felt sick.

"We need to stop." Jaina Proudmoore spoke haltingly. Erich held up a hand and the marchers began to stop. The young boy's drumming petered out and died, and murmurs broke out along the line.

"Why?" Erich asked.

"What do you think? We need to bury the dead of course!"

"Nonsense. We do not have that kind of time."

"What is wrong with you Von Peiper. Do your people let their dead lie – food for the carrion birds?" Jaina snapped at him. Her eyes glowed with arcane might and Caledra felt the slightest hints of a power building up in the slender frame of the human mage. She felt terrified.

Nor was she the only one. The mercenaries, who had held admirable discipline up to this point broke ranks and scrambled away from the mage. The line was thrown into confusion and began to disintegrate as the outlanders ran helter skelter.

Erich's face blanched as Jaina turned her gaze at him. Backed up by arcane intensity, her glare seemed otherworldly, and Erich's stature diminished as she walked up to him. Displaying some backbone, he held himself together as Jaina stood in front of him. "Answer me!"

Erich gulped and opened and closed his mouth for a moment. He seemed overawed by the presence of Jaina standing this close while being awash with magical power. "I was simply saying that we would be better off continuing the march. The enemy might leave while we dawdle -"

"What kind of monsters are you people? These people died defending Theramore, and their bodies lay defiled around you. Do you think leaving fellow soldiers to rot and be eaten by crocolisks is conduct that reflects well upon you or your people?" There was a dangerous edge in her voice, and Caledra thought that Jaina Proudmoore wanted him to answer wrongly.

Taking a deep breath, Erich answered her. "My Lady, I am sorry for the dead. I cannot speak for all my people, but personally, I am eager to avenge the brave men and women who lie here. They died defending Theramore, and it would be a damn shame if the orcs who did this to them slip away with their arms and standards as trophies."

"So scraps of cloth are more important to you people than the people that wore them." Her eyes flared and a blast of cold emanated from her, freezing Erich in place. He shivered and sweated as he realised that the answer he had given was not up to Jaina's standards.

"Capitan, is everything alright?" Luigi emerged from the gaggle of men. An arm was upon his sword and there was a mixture of fear and worry writ upon his face.

"Stay away boy." Erich replied, breaking his eyes from Jaina to focus on Luigi.

"Erich, your feet are frozen in place!"

"Stay away lad. It is not safe for you!" He shouted in reikspiel, extending an arm to keep the rapidly approaching Luigi away from the two of them.

Jaina turned to look at the commotion and spotted Luigi. Saddened at his closeness, the arcane light went out of her eyes and the ice melted into a puddle of water. "When this battle is over, and you have defeated the orcs, your men will return here and bury the dead. With their standards and weapons." Then she continued walking along the path.

Luigi held Erich while he shivered. "Bugger me lad, I can't feel my legs."

He sat down and began to rub his legs. Seeing Luigi kneel next to him he muttered, "Get the line back in order. This is disgraceful. And ask Rudi and the boy to play something peppy. We need to make up time."

While Erich was rubbing his legs vigorously, Caledra walked up to him. He was muttering to himself, cursing sorcerers in general. He caught her eye and his face turned ever so slightly red. Then he grinned. "As you can see, we do not like mages all that much."

"Are you all right Erich?" Caledra asked.

"I feel cold all over." He muttered. Then he looked at her. "Making ice out of thin air. This would be very popular in taverns eh?" Then he tried to get up and slipped. Curses were blurted and Caledra could not help but smile. Erich seemed so vulnerable.

Caledra had seen him fight at the front with his men, fighting in the thick of battle, while commanding with a coldness that seemed surreal. To see him mutter curses that would have made a sailor blush while trying to get back up was too funny. For all his commanding demeanour, Erich Von Peiper was merely mortal. And he was not to quick on his feet. She held up a hand to help him up. He stared at it for a moment before grasping it. She hoisted him up with a bit of effort. In his armour, Erich was heavier was than he looked.

He shook himself and said. "I don't think I broke anything." Turning to his men, he began shouting in Reikspiel, cajoling them back into their line. The man with the flute picked up a quick and cheerful tune and the boy from Alterac quickly picked up the beat. By the time Erich had regained the warmth in his body, the men were eager to be off. At once, they burst into a song. The lyrics were ribald and cheerful, which juxtaposed painfully with the scene around then. It however did it's job. The men began to march quicker and they continued down the path, following Jaina Proudmoore.

The ruler of Theramore knelt before a corpse, tears welling in her eyes. The girl was young, and pretty in a common sort of way. The face wore a mask of shock, as if surprised that her life had come to an end in this manner. Her stomach had been ripped open and the guts glistened in the grey pre dawn morning. "I knew this girl." Jaina muttered. "Not personally. I saw her selling fish with her father and flirting with some of the younger guards by the barracks. The last I saw her was when she joined the Theramore garrison when her father's boat was capsized by the Naga. I never asked her name." She got up and muttered a spell. The nearby bodies began to burn with an intense fire that gave off very little smoke. Within a minute they were ash. The sounds of the mercenaries singing floated up the road as they appeared closer.

"What are they saying?" The question, in Thalassian made Caledra start. The sun was up in the sky and beat down upon the army mercilessly. Lady Proudmoore was right to be curious. The mercenaries sounded like they were in extremely high spirits, and bordered on the verge of fanatical in their zeal to meet the orcs. It put her on edge. She had seen them fight when they were grim and morose. It felt strange to see the mercenaries cheering for the upcoming battle.

She turned to look at Jaina. The sorceress had conjured a hooded cloak of blue material that covered most of her head. The body of the cloak was decorated with arcane runes that seemed to glow from time to time. Caledra noticed that the mercenaries were actively trying to avoid her, glancing at her from time to time before quickly looking away. She remembered the conversation that Erich had with Phillip. The men of Tilea and the Empire seemed to have a healthy fear of magic. For her pat Caledra could not consider a life without magic. She was Quel'Dorei. Magic was in her being. Feeling sorry for them, she said, "They are singing marching songs my lady."

"What are they singing about? The tune sounds cheerful."

Caledra smiled. "It is a song about a boy bidding farewell to his lover, who is named after a flower. He is off to see the world and make enough money to treat her like a princess. All he asks for is the flower to remember her by"

"How does it end?"

Her smile vanished. "He dies in a desert, far away, his friends bury him in an unmarked grave and divide his pay amongst themselves. They leave the dead flower over his grave and bid him farewell."

To Caledra's surprise, Jaina Proudmoore smiled. "A grim folk, these outlanders. Even at the might of our power, Papa never sent ships over the Forbidding Sea. The Great Sea had the Maelstrom and the Naga, but the eastern sea was even more dangerous still. Every ship that has ever sailed upon those seas has never returned, be it Elven or Human. I wonder what sort of world they live in that they cheerfully sing about a young man meeting his death in a pointless war."

By this time, the mercenaries had reached them. Jaina picked up her staff and began to walk. "We are going to be late Captain. Remember, you have to retrieve my standards." Erich opened his mouth to deliver a quick riposte, before sealing it shut.

They must have marched for half a day before they reached a fork that branched off into two. A sign marked Northwatch pointed to the north. She saw the interloper from a distance. It was an elf. He walked up to the mercenaries who looked at him in wonder. He bowed to Jaina before making his report.

"We have ambushed a few orc patrols that were making their way down south. They are sending a force, a few hundred strong to the south to clear out the route. Wolf riders and a kodo. The camp is in an uproar."

Jaina nodded. "Thank you soldier. I must consult with the Captain and inform him of this situation. It would be best if you delivered your report to him as well. Captain Dawnbreeze. If you would come with me."

The three of them began to walk towards the vanguard of the force. Caledra took the opportunity to speak with the youth. "Where are you from?"

The ranger looked at her for a moment and wiped his brow. "Silvermoon, the Bazaar."

"You were there during the fall?"

"My father moved to Dalaran when my sister was born. I spent the last fifty years living there – before the Burning Legion came. I was part of Lady Proudmoore's group who came to Theramore after the fall of Quel'Thalas." Jaina cocked her head back for a moment before continuing to move towards the mercenaries.

"A Dalaran boy. Why aren't you a mage?" Caledra asked.

The ranger grinned. "I was not too good with magic. Never could wrap my head around the theory for channelling arcane magic. Preferred hunting the mountain lions with my bow and arrow." Then his grin disappeared. "My father died in Dalaran, defending it against Arthas. My sister sister carried on his legacy of being a magister."

By this time they had reached Erich. His face blanched as Jaina took off her cowl, while for his part the ranger swore loudly as he saw Luigi. "What is this? Arthas died at icecrown. I heard it from my sister."

"Soldier, enough. Make your report to the Captain."

Erich listened to the ranger's report with a slight frown. "How far away are they?"

"An hour, maybe less."

"How tired are you?"

"Not very."

"Good. I want you to return to your superiors. A dozen or so of you lot will stand in the middle of the road and assail the orcs. Fall back behind my lines when they begin to get close. The rest of you are not to engage this force once they begin to retreat. With any luck, the orcs will be goaded into an attack." He turned around and began to make signals with his hand that his men scrambled to obey.

The ranger turned and began to nimbly spring in the direction of the swamp within a few minutes he was running through the wetlands, dodging napping crocolisks and making bird calls to warn fellow rangers of his approach. After a few heartbeats, he had disappeared.

For his part, Erich had sprung into action. He was directing groups of men across the crossroad, pointing them to take positions along the road. His men hastened to obey. "Luigi. Get down the line and bring the cannons up. I want them on that small ridge over there, covering the road. Tell Hans to get there and guard the damn things. They fire on my order, not before. Tell Crowley to march forward and get her boys covering the other road. Everyone else on reserve. And get me Serra." There was a gleam in his eyes as he rubbed his hands with excitement. A child would have done the same when there was a new toy to play with.

"What are you planning to do Captain?" Jaina broke into his glee.

Erich simply smiled. "Paying back the orcs for what they did to your people. And mine. I should thank them. They are rushing headlong into their final battle."

* * *

Ghorak howled loudly as an arrow struck it's snout. Mal'gor cursed. Damn these elves. They had never heard of honour. He reached out and plucked it out of the wolf's snout. Warm blood dribbled down the muzzle, that the dire wolf lapped up with abandon. Ghorak howled in excitement. There was battle on the horizon. Mal'gor agreed. His instincts told him the same. There was something afoot in the ruined city. Rok'nah had not made his report. His tardiness made him almost as bad as the dishonourable Alliance scum.

Even in the remnants of Draenor, when the world had been consumed by Ner'zhul's mad ambition, there had been a semblance of honour. The Mag'har had stayed true to their ancient ways, even as the world around them had literally crumbled. He had fought with, and slain a dozen ogres during those years, following Jorin to carve out a new home for those afflicted with the red pox. They had hunted by the light of the worlds and the stars, and had lived a life of freedom. When Garrosh followed Go'el into Azeroth, many of the Mag'har had followed them.

The warchief was right. Kalimdor belonged to the Horde. Go'el for all his great heart, was too soft. The Alliance was an implacable foe that was bent to the destruction of the Horde. His blood had boiled when he had learnt of the atrocities committed upon them when the Alliance had won. An entire people subjugated and turned to the lash. It went against the core of his being. Go'el should have known more than any other what it meant to be under the yoke of the Humans. The orcs were a brave and honourable people, who would stand triumphant. The ancient chant Lok'tar Ogar was as true now as it was before the demons came. Victory or Death.

"Your command, Mal'gor?" The young orc asked him. She was younger than him – of course, scarcely a warrior, but eager to prove her mettle. Borah was one of the tainted ones. She had been born on Azeroth, in one of the internment camps. Scarcely sixteen years of age, she fought with a ferocity that impressed him. Wielding a war axe and a shield, Borah was a better fighter on foot. How she had become his lieutenant, Mal'gor could not tell.

"Tell the riders not to chase the elves. The fork will be approaching soon. We have our orders. Report to Rok'nah and help him deal with the elves." He shouted over the din of the panting wolves.

"As you command." And then she was gone, mingling into the rest of the riders with surprising skill. Borah had handled herself well in the attack on Ashenvale. A warsong grunt who had fought in the thickest part of the battle with strength that brought honour to her ancestors. Hellscream's fury ran deep within his clan. She had tempered it with a cool demeanour and the ability to follow orders.

The Alliance weaklings had thought themselves invincible when the Horde had been pushed into a corner. Spineless and snivelling as they were, they had thought the children of Draenor would roll over like a broken wolf cub when they pleased. Garrosh had proved them wrong. The war was going splendidly. Their new fleet had blockaded Kalimdor. The victory the Alliance had in Ashenvale would be their last. The human nation of Theramore, long an aggressor against Durotar was now in ruins, and soon the Night Elves would follow. With the power of the Focusing Iris, the Horde was unbeatable.

Which is why Rok'nash's buffoonery was an affront to them all. The Draconic device was incredibly powerful and would be necessary to secure the Horde's place in the world. Like it as not, the fool had lost it in the ruins of Theramore and was digging for it even now, which is why there had been no report. Nor was there any likely to be. Alliance forces infested the swamps, no doubt the few pitiful survivors were harassing as many messengers from Theramore as they could. In time, when the Focusing Iris was in his hand, Garrosh would reward him richly. Mal'gor had been enthralled by Ashenvale. Maybe he could have a cabin in the woods where he could hunt with his wolves all day, once the Night Elves had been driven off.

As they neared the crossroads, the elves began to peel off away from them and retreat deeper into the swamps. Mal'gor cursed them again. The lithe creatures fought well when they had to, but for the most part they preferred to run away and fire arrows. It was a coward's tactic, and one that worked poorly for them. If they had stood and fought, maybe much of Ashenvale would not have fallen to the horde. As it was, the only reason the warriors of the Horde had been driven back was because the Alliance had sent an entire army from the Eastern Kingdoms and catching them in their rear. It would never happen again.

Ghorak gave a baying howl as they saw the fork itself. The wolves of the other riders replied to his growl and howled in unison. It was a sound designed to terrify and remind the foe that no matter how strong they thought they were, in the end, they were but prey before the Horde. The orcs had fought against Ogres and Gronn, killed gods and demons. Some arrow flinging elves and rag tag humans were nothing to them. They would have the dishonour of starving in the swamps or being eaten by crocolisks.

The first time Mal'gor felt something was wrong was as he saw the sign at the crossroads. For a moment he felt confused as his instincts told him something was out of place. Ghorak felt the same. The wolf's fur bristled and his fangs bared as he saw the sign. He clearly smelled something wrong. Mal'gor raised his axe, and the wolf riders stopped behind him. Some of the keener nosed wolves began to howl and bark their alarms. There was some kind of Alliance trickery afoot here. He looked around for Borah. Even as she caught his eye and began to move her mount towards him, a flurry of arrows erupted from the swamp on the far side of the road. The arrows struck some of his wolf riders. At least three keeled and fell over, their vitals pierced by elven shafts. His side erupted in pain as the arrow pushed through his leather straps and dug into a rib.

Angrily he snapped the arrow off. He was Mag'har. If the Elves wanted to fight, then by the ancestors, he would give them what they wanted. Turning to look at his warriors, Mal'gor saw that they were if a like mind. All throughout the morning, the elves had been ambushing horde patrols that kept the roads clear. His riders were not going to sit idly at that. They would chase the elves into the swamps and throw them to the crocolisks and ride back with their banners and heads.

His warriors, both Mag'har and those tainted by fel agreed. The light of battle was in their eyes. Instinctively, they rallied around Ghorak and formed up into an assault. The orcish way of war was different from the human one. Their direwolves were formidable, and humans were prey. Eager at the prospect of running down elves, their anger and bloodlust was bordering on unstoppable. With a swift nod, the kodo rider began to play the drum and with a shout exhorting the horde credo, the wolf riders – the vanguard of the unconquerable horde leapt to slaughter the elves.

As Mal'gor had expected, the elves began to retreat into the mists that had appeared around the far side of the road. A shaman began to chant, exhorting the spirits of the wind to blow away the coiling mists. Soon the elves would be vulnerable, and annihilated.

When after a few moments the mists stubbornly clung to roadsides, He turned in anger at the shaman. "Why aren't the mists dissipating?" He shouted even as the fork approached closer.

"They have a shaman. He is powerful. The elements hearken to him." The greybeard muttered.

"Then break them. Your kind used the elements when Northwatch fell. Do it now, so that we may sweep these miserable curs away."

The old orc blanched. His face was a mask of shock. "This goes against everything Nazgrel and Thrall taught us."

"Garrosh is the warchief, not Thrall. Follow the warchief's orders shaman, or you will wish you had."

With a mournful look, the shaman began to chant. His voice sounded louder and harsher, and slowly the mists began to float away. Dim shapes were now visible, moving rapidly away from the wolf riders. Applying a final effort, the mist thinned, and at that moment, the shaman shook violently, and began to bleed from his face. Mal'gor did not give a second glance. The weakling had done his job. He would need to talk to Malkorok about stronger shamans in the future. Whipping his forces into a frenzy, Mal'gor led his forces into the mists, eager to show elves why the Horde was the unstoppable juggernaut that it was, leaving the dying shaman in the dust.

As the mists finally dissipated, Mal'gor rubbed his eyes in wonder. They had expected a few dozen elves at most. Instead they had found a foe worth taking a second look at.

Hundreds of humans were marching towards his wolf riders in a slow and steady manner. From what he saw, they were evenly numbered. There was something eerie about the way they came to battle. The alliance humans fought in heavy armour and carried shields, swords and spears to come to grips with the superior strength of the orcs. They would shout and banged their shields, trying to intimidate their opponents. These humans in contrast seemed comically accoutred. All of them seemed to carry pikes, overlong spears that the humans sought to use to keep themselves away from the reach of orcish arms. Their armour seemed to be stolen or scavenged, with bits of chain and plate covering their torsos or heads. A militia.

Somehow a militia had escaped the destruction of Theramore. No wonder the elves were so bold. They had humans to hide behind. Even in the Horde, the elves were an embarrassment. They were too polished, as if fighting at the front with honour was underneath them. For all their poshness, the Sin'dorei were useful. They were powerful mages, and in an all out war, the horde would use any advantage it could get. They had primed the Mana bomb that had obliterated Theramore. Now their kin were trying to avenge the destruction of their pathetic hovels. The only thing odd about them was they made no sound. Just the steady tramp of marching feet, accentuated by what sounded like a drum and a flute.

Borah rode up to him, eager to come to grips with these humans. "Your commands?"

"We will charge at this human rabble. They are on foot while we are mounted. We will sweep through their ranks and cut them down where they stand. Take no prisoners. And a week's leave to the one that brings me their standard."

Galvanised by his orders, the wolf riders began to shout and chant. The mood was infectious, and it spread through their wolves. With a leap and a bound, they charged forward to destroy their elusive foe. It would be simple. The lightly armoured humans would be scattered by their wolves. There was no ancient magical forest or engine of war to protect them. This was a battle of axe, sword and strength. The poor fools were already doomed.

The humans stopped marching and turned to face them. This was splendid. His riders knew Mal'gor's plan. They would split into three groups – each following him, Borah and the standard bearer – and surround the humans. It worked against the ogres on Draenor. It worked against the Scourge at Northrend, and it had worked against the humans in the barrens before. Attacking the flank was the swiftest way to victory.

As the riders began to follow their assigned leaders, they began to chant the war cries that had chilled many a heart on Azeroth. Even the hardest veterans of the Alliance quailed in their boots when they heard the cries. The orcs of Draenor were more than brave warriors and heroes. They were the chosen of the Horde, and even the elements hastened to obey the calls of their shamans. It was their right to have dominion over Azeroth, just as it had been on Draenor. Their foes knew in their hearts that this was true. Which is why they often broke and ran when the wolves descended upon them.

To his surprise, even as they got closer, the humans did not break their ranks and flee. To the contrary, they tightened their ranks. It reminded Mal'gor of frightened pigs trying to hide in their sties. He laughed, and his warriors followed in his suit. They were slaughtering pigs, not humans.

As the riders began to get close, a single voice burst out from the human ranks. Mal'gor had fought enough to know it was a command. He saw something peculiar. The humans turned to face outward on all four sides, and their marching column began to resemble a square. This was odd. If the humans expected to turn their sides outward to prevent being flanked they were in for a surprise. They were fighting orcs on wolves, not humans on horses. A properly raised direwolf was extremely aggressive. A wall of men was no hindrance to it. It would pounce on it's prey and end it swiftly. With a signal from Mal'gor, Borah's riders picked up their pace and galloped to the side, eager to surround the humans and pounce upon them.

It did not go unnoticed by the human ranks. The voice spoke again, this time for a moment longer, and Mal'gor was struck by the realisation that it did not sound like the common tongue. The words seemed harsher, and sharper for some reason. A line of a hundred or so men emerged from the square, with firearms in their arms.

Mal'gor had never been impressed by firearms. They made foul smells and loud noises that scared the prey away, and took too long to reload. A good spear was better than any gun, especially as marksmanship was hard to do with those goblin made things. In this case, there were far too few guns for their riders. A few of them would fall – it was inevitable and they would meet their ancestors with honour. Then his warriors would close in and destroy the humans.

Strangely enough, the humans did not fire at Borah and her riders. Instead they stood like statues staring down at his riders. There was not a hint of fear on their faces. Just a hint of anger and mostly boredom. There was something obscene in the way these humans looked at his warriors. Who did these badly armed peasants think they were that they could stare down the mightiest orcs outside the kor'kron and dare to feel _bored?_

With a final yell the rest of the wolf riders began to charge. Yet, the humans did not budge. There was an eerie air about them that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. There was no reaction even as the humans were engulfed in the Horde's war cries. Then a voice spoke among the encircled humans. The front rank of the men with the guns knelt down and leveled their guns at Borah's contingent. Mal'gor was puzzled. Her riders were surely within the range of the humans, but they didn't fire. Then the voice spoke again, and as one, the humans fired at close range upon her riders.

Borah's line buckled as though it had been struck by a gronn's foot. Fifty or so wolves went down and tumbled towards the human line and the shouts and screams of his warriors sent a shiver of fear up Mal'gor's spine. This was not supposed to be. Borah had disappeared among her downed riders. A dozen or so riders, unharmed began to run away. He was too stunned to even chastise them. If a lightning bolt of struck Borah's riders, they would not be so shocked.

The banner warriors, on the other side did not see what had happened. They began to close in with howls and challenges, looking to close in with the humans. The blood was rushing to Mal'gor's face. As they got into charging range, the gunners retreated inside the rough square. The voice shouted again, and then the humans made some noise. Standing in a square, they spoke two words in a tongue that was not common. The first line knelt and pointed their pikes upward. The second line raised their pikes straight towards the riders. The third raised their pikes over the second line's shoulders. Mal'gor was not stupid. He knew what would happen if the wolf riders charged into the lines, but it was too late. Carried on by their own momentum the riders ran into the braced lines.

Mal'gor's body exploded in pain. His shoulder, belly and thigh had been pierced by pikes. Instinctively, he pulled on his mount's reigns to get himself away from the mess. Ghorak, who he had raised from a pup in the plains of Nagrand, gave a shudder and stopped moving. His oldest companion was gone.

Anger rose up hot in him. The pain disappeared in a tidal wave of anger. Nothing mattered anymore. Under the gazing eyes of his ancestors, he would make his warriors proud. He would find the owner of the voice and gut the pitiful man in front of these miserable cowards.

His axe slashed left and right, and humans fell down with screams and grunts. He towered over them, and their light armour was no match against the vengeful fury of an orc on his deathbed. He bullied his way into the tight square of men, taking no account of the stabs and thrusts aimed upon his body. In a calm and detached manner, Mal'gor thought that he was swimming upstream through a river of humanity. That thought amused him. His target was not too far away now. His ears had picked up that voice again. It was talking coolly to others, encouraging them to kill his people.

A woman's voice broke in, saying something in common. Mal'gor could not comprehend what she said, but the alarm in her voice pleased him.

The voice spoke again, and Mal'gor finally saw the person that it belonged to. A long thin man wearing a hat was speaking to a woman in a hood. This close, he could clearly hear what the human was saying.

"... are not going to be a problem. The bigger concern is going to be the main body of their army." His accent sounded foreign. Mal'gor had interrogated and fought a variety of humans before, they sounded nothing like it. He had heard rumours that some strange humans had washed up in the Eastern kingdoms. Perhaps this was one of them. Killing him would deal a mighty blow to the faltering Alliance.

The woman spoke. "Still, this is very impressive. You had no knights and your heavily armoured troops are guarding the batteries. Taking an even number of Kor'kron wolf riders would be a tall order on open ground for most."

"Not at all. We are used to fighting orcs. They lack higher thinking faculties -"

With a roar, Mal'gor charged at the human with the last of his strength. The man's vaunted intelligence would do him little good when he had been split into too. He raised his hand and prepared for the killing blow.

Suddenly a blast of cold, as cold as the air above Icecrown Citadel suffused his body, and to his amazement, he was encased in ice.

The human jumped and moved away from the spell, and Mal'gor saw a figure standing in front of him. A human female with a blue cowl and eyes that stared at him with unbridled hatred.

The male walked up to him and inspected him closely. There was curiosity and amusement on his face, along with a hint of contempt. "Well well well, congratulations. You are the sneakiest orc I have ever seen. And such an exotic colour too. "

Mal'gor tried to spit on him, but the ice that had encased him froze it solid down it's throat.

"Tell me orc, how many of your malodorous kind do you have at Northwatch."

Mal'gor craned his neck. The noise had all but died down. The shouts of his warriors and their mounts were silenced one by one, and the sound of gunshots rang in the stuffy dustwallow marsh air. He knew then what was going to happen to him.

"Ten times your rabble await you at Northwatch, and they will be eager for battle. We will destroy you soon human, and carry your banner back to the victory feast at Orgrimmar."

The human's smile broadened at that, a smile that did not reach his eyes. They were as grey as Ghorak's fur, and reminded Mal'gor of the most vicious warriors of the Old Horde. Monsters given away to fel crazed madness but retaining their brains. He shivered – from the cold or from fear he could not tell.

After a moment, the human walked away. "Lady Proudmoore, this one is all yours. I would advise waiting a while until it sees what we have awaiting it."

How long Mal'gor waited there, frozen in place did not know, but eventually the last sound of battle died down and after a command from the man, the humans began to march away. By this time the ice had begun to melt, and he found that he could crane his head around.

The humans had taken their dead away. They had left the orc dead behind. Most of them had died of stabs, but the humans had taken no care to honour the remains of his warriors. They were food for carrion birds and crocolisks.

Mal'gor felt wrong. They had left the defenders of theramore unburied because they had fought without honour – ambushing and fighting in the swamps instead of facing them in open combat. His wolf riders had done the latter. They deserved better.

All thoughts of propriety disappeared from his mind when the mists began to clear. Mal'gor watched in terror as the shapes of hundreds of humans – similarly armed appeared from beyond the pale. The human had goaded him to tell the numbers of the rearguard army. From what he could count, there were hundreds, if not thousands of humans arrayed for battle. The size of the human forces might be lesser than those at Ashenvale, but there had been an air of smug arrogance in their walk that disturbed him. The woman was right. They had not quailed and balked at the charge of the wolf riders, but calmly used their strength against them.

Mal'gor's body seized up in pain as the ice began to crack. Razor thin slivers of frost sliced at his body sawing him into bits. It felt like his entire body was on fire, and then he heard a loud snap. The ice was splitting, with him in it.

As the pain assaulted his consciousness, the last thoughts of Mal'gor were those of a verdant grassland, far away from the world of Azeroth, where he and Ghorak hunted together in the light of the stars and different worlds.

* * *

 _ **A/N So, I realised I misspelt Mathias Shaw wrong all this time. I will correct it in the future.**_

 _ **guest, the entire warcraft universe runs around the rule of cool. In later years, warcraft kept adding power creep to the setting while whfb stayed stagnant. What everyone forgets that wars require logistics. Having a bunch of cool doomsday weapons don't matter unless you can get them to the front line. So far Erich has fought against**_

 _ **A small undead army with a few aboms attempting to take over Southshore during the later stages of the Gilneas invasion.**_

 _ **A forsaken army without it's artillery and meat wagons while having the artillery advantage due to a dwarf artillery brigade and prepared defensive positions.**_

 _ **A bunch of ogres.**_

 _ **A bigger bunch of ogres.**_

 _ **some gnolls.**_

 _ **a few murlocs.**_

 ** _Now none of them are exactly best of the best tier that Azeroth has to offer. He isn't fighting the Spellbreakers, Wardens or Blood Knights. He will be fighting against a well prepared opponent in a bit, and which is where the technological advantage of it will come into the play._**

 ** _Blinded in a Bolthole, those are called norscans._**

 ** _Machcia, that was a cool little thematic thing I added to give flavour to the fact that Azerothian humans and Old World humans have wildly different reactions to magic, both mentally as well as physically._**

 ** _the Jackinati275, well you are right_**

 ** _John092, thanks for commenting. Reading the discussions inside the review are the best part of the story. Keep them coming guys._**

 ** _Dios de la Nada, That is something to worry about._**

 ** _Guest, it takes some time to write these stories._**

 ** _Guest, Well that all happens in the future. Jaina doesn't drown Theramore because Kalec reminds her that doing it makes her no better than Garrosh. Right now she is in a splintered state of mind, something that will go well with the old worlder's thoughts on work._**

 ** _Deadliestfan, well Erich is a Sollander. It makes sense for him to compare everything from his ancestral heritage and it's fate.  
as far as mobilization times go, WoW handwaves it away through portals. When the PCs are the centre of the story, they are basically at the bleeding edge of Azeroth's technological and magical leaps. Warcraft in general handwaves away the boring to make cool action set pieces, which are great for a game, but becames an unbelievable world when logistics gets involved. At this time the Alliance is cranking out tanks but getting them to the frontlines and using them are worlds apart. A lot of people alive in the story earned their chops in the second war where the most advanced piece of technology on the ground were cannon towers. They will have problems adjusting to the tech revolution. Of course, there are good ones, and bad ones._**

 ** _srosnan99, thanks for reading. Expect that problem to be remedied._**


	42. Chapter 42

**Faith, Steel and Cunning Plans**

* * *

If someone were to ask Erich about Dustwallow Marsh half a century for now, the only thing he would remember was the heat and the humidity. As he stood at a distance watching the few orcs retreat, all Erich wanted to do was crawl into a tent with a pint of cool ale and fall asleep. As Ranald had decreed, he was now sweltering in the heat, waiting for the orcs to fall into the trap he had set up.

Centuries of warfare had taught humanity on how the orcish mind worked. For all their frightening strength and toughness, orcs were by and large simple creatures whose minds straddled the lines between animal cunning and a twisted sapience. In this manner, they were similar to the children of chaos – the horrific beastmen that plagued the forests of the Old World. Yet, there was a spark of cunning - deeply embedded – in the greenskin mind. Occasionally, from their numbers of brutish brawlers, cunning warbosses would emerge. Large of volume and cruel in disposition, the orcs were an unstoppable force under the proper leader. It had been scorched in the minds of humanity.

This orc leader – Hellscream – was certainly one of these terrifying opponents. In the long history of human survival and triumph, very few things were capable of annihilating an entire city. The city of Theramore had been obliterated and destroyed down to it's very roots in a matter of moments. From what little Erich knew about the ruinous powers of Chaos, even they were not capable of this level of violence. The city of Mordheim had been destroyed by an errant comet. Praag had fallen, but it never had been turned into a crater. The enormity of the forces that were marshalled against them would terrify even the most resolute of the empire's defenders.

Perhaps it was why Erich was trying very hard not to speak about it. He could see the doubt in the eyes of his men. What could they possibly do against a foe that could level entire cities in a few scant moments? They – much like him – welcomed the cloud of dust that was slowly approaching them. Orcs, outnumbering them two to one. These were tangible odds. Not the easiest perhaps, but flesh and blood foes that they could come to grips with. Magic that could turn people to arcane powder was beyond them. He desperately hoped that the scant number of wizards in this army could be more than a match for the orc force bearing down on them.

Caledra had gone on ahead, to link up with the elven rangers that were hiding in the scrubs and swamps. She would be returning when the orcs were close enough. Erich had been sad to see her go. There was something about her that titillated his senses. Statuesque was a word used to describe elves in Tilea. It was a good way to describe them, and much like the elven tongue, it worked both to flatter and denigrate. Elven arrogance was after all no match for Tilean wit. Elves were as splendid as statues, and just as rigid. Even after centuries of trade with the Southlands, elves were known for their arrogance. At least dwarfs would drink with you – all the while complaining about the weak drink – and were true to their word. Elves had none of that. Caledra was refreshingly different. She was a real flesh and blood person. At least Erich was sure that she could take care of herself.

"Captain, any last minute changes?" Lorna had walked up to him. Erich noticed that for all her armour, she did not have any helmet on. Erich could not blame her. His cap was not much of a defence either.

"No. Keep falling back after the orcs fall back and begin to regroup. We need to lure them inwards, towards the cannons."

She nodded and started walking back to her troops. He turned to look back at his cannons, six shipborne artillery pieces, on which this battle revolved. The highest ground surrounding the battlefield had been reserved for them. His plan was solid, and would deliver a crushing blow to the orcs. The last time he had been in a battle with odds as bad as this one, he had been born anew. Myrmida willing, he would make his professors and Old Valdoz proud.

"Captain. This plan of yours, are you sure it will work?" The feminine voice told Erich who it was. He turned to look at Jaina Proudmoore.

"No."

Her mouth opened in an expression of bemusement and anger before she closed it.

"Then all this planning was for nothing?"

"I did not say that."

"There is no need to be so cryptic Captain. All these people here have put their trust in you. Their lives depend upon your orders."

Erich sighed. "There is much in battle that is beyond the best of leaders and their men. At best I can make an informed guess. The orcs outnumber us two to one, and the battlefield is too narrow for them to attack us all at once to overwhelm our positions. On the other hand, there is no place for us to retreat to, and we have no reserves to speak of. The only advantage we have is in our artillery – if the scouts are right – and the fact that we have an advantage of discipline. Captain Dawnbreeze tells me you are a mighty sorceress who can freeze armies solid. I want you to do that same when they send in their latter waves."

"And what about those halberdiers by the cannons?"

"A hundred men do not make a reserve. They make for an incisive striking force to tear apart the orc lines once we have them where we want them. Once they are surrounded, feel free to obliterate their masses with your magic."

"This sounds very shaky."

"A shaky plan is all I could come up with my lady. My apologies. All our original plans went up in smoke when the orcs tried to attempt a reconnaissance in force. Time will tell how it meets the enemy."

"Your plan is retreating away from the orcs with the centre of your army."

"Yes. When they are close, we can trap them and unleash all the firepower that we have."

"When will you know when the time is right?"

"When they get desperate."

* * *

Caledra heard the rumblings first. During the millennia, the rangers of Quel'Thalas learned to hear with senses other than their sight. The Amani were quite adept in blending in the greens of the woods. The shadow war waged between Quel'Thalas and Zul'aman was often fought blindly. Arrows flew and axes were tossed in the twilight gloom beneath the trees. A keen pair of eyes was an asset, but not necessarily the only one a ranger needed to do their duty.

Now, it was as if the earth shook with the rumble of thousands of heavy bodies rushing ahead. Caledra had fought during the defence of Quel'Thalas in both the Second war and the Third. She knew what the tremor in her bones told her. An army was on the march, intent on spilling the blood of elves and humans. When she sighted the dust clouds, she knew that it was time to be gone.

The young ranger nodded at her and the two clasped hands. Within a few moments, he ran into the mangroves by the swamps and disappeared from view. Caledra had to smile. The youth had excellent instincts that far surpassed her own. If the rest of the rangers were as good as him, they could lie in concealment while the orcs passed a few yards away from them without ever finding them out. Her task on the other hand was to act as a scout and warn the mercenary army that an army of orcs was on the verge of reaching them.

She ran lightly over the distance, noticing with alarm that the dust cloud was growing at an alarming pace. The orcs were beating a furious pace to come at grips with their foe. A shiver ran up her spine as memories of the scourge tearing through the elf gates came back. It had been years since that fateful day, and even now it terrified her.

Erich was busy conversing with Jaina. From his body language, it was clear that the man was annoyed. The few snatches of conversation that she picked up as she approached the pair were regarding tactics. Jaina was concerned that Erich's plan was too vague. His reply was that it was hard to tell which way a battle was going to go, and it was better to have a plan that was flexible rather than rigid. His candour reminded Caledra of another leader she had served under. Sylvanas Windrunner was an excellent tactician, and where she excelled at was delegating to her underlings. It had not saved her from Arthas, and the High Elves had paid the price. It remained to be seen if these humans would meet the same fate.

"The orcs approach." She said. The conversation broke off as the two turned to face her. There was a mixture of grief and anger on Jaina's face, while Erich looked like a little girl who was seeing a hawkstrider hatchling for the first time.

"Excellent. I must say, it is awfully kind of them to be so prompt." He rubbed his hands. "Captain, if you would be so kind as to convey this message to the others. I would like them to be ready. Tell them that they will do fine, and that the plan stays the same."

Caledra shot him a dark look. She had sprinted a not inconsequential distance, covering most of the battlefield, only to be told that she needed to criss cross it once more. She took a moment to compose herself and set off once again.

The humans of Lordaeron, Gilneas and Alterac did not need to be told what was happening. There was a painful stillness in the air which told them that the battle was about to commence. It was the calm before the storm, which would break before long. She ran throughout the battlefield, relaying Erich's commands and encouraging the men. To her surprise, the smallest word of cheer steeled the men far better than stern commands. The fact that they were well trained and equipped, along with the small skirmish they had secured victory in meant that morale was high, and the memory of Theramore was still hot in their minds, as much as it was in hers.

Before the Shattering, she had heard rumours that there was to be a peace summit in Theramore that would finally bind up the wounds of war. Now the city was chaff, and the war still raged on. Theramore might be the most egregious example, but the march on Southshore and the destruction of Gilneas proved that this war would be long and bitter. Her anger at the Horde reached a fever pitch as she remembered the piles of arcane dust that had been people only a short time before. Varian Wrynn was right. The Horde was made of monsters. And monsters needed to be put down.

By the time she was done relaying her messages, the orc army was beginning to fill out the battlefield. Ranks upon ranks of orcs, with their axes, swords and banners streamed into the crossroads in a veritable tide of green, with the occasional brown splashes. The war cries of the army shattered the painful stillness of the air, and some of the humans momentarily dropped their weapons as their courage was challenged by the assembled might of the Horde. The two draenei began to chant slowly, their voices a beacon of calm in the cacophony of noise, and the faltering courage of the humans rallied once more.

Their foe was here.

In stark contrast to the humans of the eastern kingdoms, the mercenaries largely lolled about bored. As Caledra made her way through the ranks, there was an undercurrent of excitement amongst the mercenaries. It reminded her of the Darkmoon Faire. They chatted about everything and anything other than the large army that was now facing them. A few of them smiled and nodded to her, and wished her luck in the upcoming battle.

At the front, Erich was talking to Luigi. He had put his hand on the shoulder of the youth and was whispering something to him. Caledra had to strain her ear to hear what was being said.

"... and I don't know if I can do it."

"Yes you can. Give the order to fall back when the orc lines break. It is not too hard lad."

"But what if the orcs feint?" The younger man asked with a hint of panic in his voice.

"Push them back. You are surrounded by people that have put their lives in your hands and come out stronger. Believe in them, who believe in you."

Luigi hugged him, and Erich returned it awkwardly for a moment before the two men moved moved apart. A few wolf whistles from the mercenaries with a few ribald jokes ended up lightening the mood. For her part, Caledra turned scarlet as she parsed what the humans said.

"What did they say?" Jaina asked her. The erstwhile ruler of Theramore had stood apart from the humans, intently scanning the orc lines. Caledra thought that several of these orcs who now opposed them had fought alongside Jaina to defend the world a decade ago. The promise of those days of glory had long vanished like the morning mist.

"Sailor's Humour, My lady." She replied.

Lady Proudmoore smiled a sad smile. "Perhaps these outlander mercenaries are not so different after all."

The orc army began to advance. As they did, a low chant emerged from their lines, which was picked up by the advancing army, marching in a rough square, aimed at the centre of the Alliance line which was held by the Gilneans and the Tileans. The rough chant of the orcish, along with the menacing sound of thousands of footsteps was terrifying and mesmerising at the same time. It commanded awe effortlessly. The mailed fist of the horde was raised towards them, and it coming for them, singing it's song of victory or death.

"What are they saying?" Erich asked, his smile looking painfully out of place.

Caledra opened her mouth, but Jaina cut her off. "Lok'tar Ogar. It means victory or death." Her eyes glowed blue as she summoned tendrils of arcane energy from her staff.

Erich's smile vanished. "Do they say anything else?"

"Blood and Thunder. Glory to the Horde." Caledra answered.

He turned to look at the mercenaries. "You hear that boys? Orcs talking about honour and glory." There was a shard of hatred in his voice that cut through the din of the battle. Everyone's eyes turned to look at him, including Jaina who could not understand what he said.

Caledra noticed the change that had come over him. By nature, Erich Von Peiper was a mercenary leader, and behaved the part. Part warrior, part general, and part rogue, he traded insults merrily with his underlings and superiors, drank enough alcohol to drown a dwarf and cared not about his enemy. A man like that did not survive long enough if he could not motivate his soldiers. She had seen the mercenaries fight. If Erich had not lived up to their standards, he would have been killed a long time ago.

"Glory." He said, and the word commanded the attention of everyone around him. The merenaries jostled each other to hear their captain speak.

"Tell me everything he says." Jaina commanded her, and Caledra nodded quickly.

"Honour" He he sneered. "Who do they think they are? Bretonnians? Now lads, as the good Sultan Jaffar said in Miragliano – 'At last, we have truly eaten shit.'."

A ragged cheer broke up in the line. Erich's smile returned, and there was a steely edge to it. She knew what a smile Caledra quickly translated the intent to Jaina.

"Now, many of you have been part of this gang of scum and low lives longer than me. We have fought many an exotic foe, whether they be giant rats, giant norscans or plain old giants. Now comes the most bizarre thing we have ever seen. Orcs pretending to be bretons."

The assembled line burst into wild guffaws and yells. Caledra heard some of the soldiers repeat something about honour glory and a lady with a comically exaggerated accent.

For his Erich raised a finger and pointed at the road towards Theramore. "Down this path, there was once a city, full of life and vigour, where mothers bathed their squealing children, and fathers left to farm or fish. Now it is a crater."

The cheering stopped.

"As we have learned in our long conflict. Orcs come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some are green, while others black. Now we see brown added to the palette. Make no mistake gentlemen, no matter what colour, Orcs are NOT Honourable. Ask the Dwarfs of the world's edge mountains. Ask the countless people that lie dead all across the Old World. They are fungi, and as the Old Franz said. Fungi must be trodden underfoot.

This company held it's own against Grimgor Ironhide. We defeated the Norscans at Brionne and crushed the Skaven at Miragliano. We need not fear these _honourable and noble_ orcs. The Goddess taught us war so that we could live in a world free of tyranny.

A tidal wave of roaring engulfed Caledra. Dozens of the mercenaries began to shout a name. "Myrmidia – Myrmidia. The Goddess of War will lead us to Victory."

Erich smiled grimly. "All she asked in return was to protect the weak. Today, we have failed at that. Now Verena demands that we make matters right. If we cannot protect, the weak, we shall avenge them. Grab your weapons, and let us fulfil our sacred charge. A new breed of orcs come to test our mettle. Show them why Monte Castello still stands."

A cheer emerged from the line and thundered over the battlefield. Even the approaching orcs stopped for a moment in surprise. "Viva Monte Castello Viva," the mercenaries shouted even as hundreds of men put on their helmets and grasped their weapons. Erich Von Peiper had stoked the pride of his men. Honourless they might hold themselves to be, but they were professional soldiers – as proud of their craft as any Arcanist or Magister. There was a gleam in their eye that told her that they would not retreat against the horde. Not while their captain was amongst them. She did not know if their gods watched them, but she prayed to the Sunwell that something did. Otherwise this would be a short battle.

As the orcs resumed their march towards them, Erich turned back and gave a short nod. A hush fell over the line. A tension arose in the air as he made his way towards them. It had all the quality of the drum roll before the start of the play. If Caledra had not seen the mercenaries fight before she would have rolled her eyes. Their rituals before battle were alien to the Alliance at large, but it certainly was effective.

"Gunners, five paces forward!" The older man, Littorio shouted. From the assembled line of pikes, a hundred or so gunners marched ahead in a close formation, two men deep. Their arms, made by her niece and the gnomish engineer looked extremely ordinary and plain. Men stood at attention, their guns by their side at rest while they looked at the rapidly approaching mass of orcs. Acting on a whim, Caledra walked up ahead towards their line, unslinging her bow. She knew what was going to happen. Rangers fired in volleys during pitched battles, although very rarely at these ranges.

She was struck by how old most of the mercenaries looked. With their unshaven beards and unkempt hair, they looked more like a mob of badly equipped rioters than a competent military unit. Most of their faces were resigned, while some looked like they were muttering prayers to someone called Shallya. Something about mercy and forgiveness for what they were about to do. Littorio for his part walked down the line, with his sword dragging a line in the ground.

"Steady lads. Wait for my command. Let them approach."

The roar of the approaching army filled Caledra's ears, and yet the mercenaries held their ground, challenging the onrushing tide with forced calm. A few of them seemed to be trembling, whether from fear or excitement, she could not tell.

"Hey Sergeant, they close enough yet?" Someone shouted to her left.

"Patience Eduardo, trust in the Capitan and his plan." The old man shot back promptly.

As it was, the first shot was not fired by the mercenaries, but by the horde. A dozen shamans in headresses began to chant around a totem, and a large bolt of fire hurtled towards the line. The mercenaries began to waver, but just before it reached the line, it detonated violently over their own ranks. Caledra turned to see Jaina's eyes glowing blue and a barrier of ice forming ahead of the mercenaries. "I will deal with their shamans, do not worry."

"What did she say?" A man to her left asked Caledra.

"She said she will take care of their wizards." He simply nodded in reply.

"You heard that boys? We have wizards of our own now. No need to fear them." Littorio yelled down the line. "Now lets about it then."

Caledra took a sharp breath and began to count internally. It was a good trick to get her mind to focus. After she had counted to seven, the much awaited order finally arrived.

"Gunners, Front Rank, Kneel!"

As one, the first row knelt down, clutching their guns with a hand. The second rank stood at rapt attention.

"Take. Aim!"

The humans levelled their guns at the approaching orc forces. The faster orcs were close to beginning their rush. If the mercenaries would have been Thalassian rangers, they would have fired by now. For her part, Caledra nocked an arrow to her bow and pulled the string back. In a few moments, she expected the humans to fire.

Instead they kept their guns level, waiting for the line to draw closer. Caledra's arm began to hurt from the bow she had drawn. Something was odd. The humans were still not firing even as the orcs were closing in. A few more moments and she would have to release her arrow.

"Fire."

Her fingers let go of the bowstring and her arrow sped away with a soft twang. As if in reply to her, a hundred guns rang in unison. Reflexively, she clapped her hands on her ears. It was one thing to stand in a group of marksmen taking potshots at scourge patrols. It was quite another to hear the full report of a hundred guns going off at the same time.

For all the disorientation it did to Caledra, the effect had on the advancing orcs was something to behold. For a few seconds her entire view was covered by a thick veil of smoke, before the sea breeze quickly blew it away.

The orc line had stopped momentarily in confusion as their front row had been shot to pieces. The human guns used a bigger bullet that had lesser range, but Caledra was impressed with the effect it had on orcs. Most orcs were capable of shrugging off human gunfire with some difficulty, but the heavy shot and extra powder had pushed it's killing power over the edge.

Most of the orcs in the line of fire were now on the ground, weakly trying to move. Instead of bullet holes, chunks of their flesh and armour had been ripped off their bodies. It was terrifying to behold, and after a moment, the length of the battlefield was alive with the sounds of guns going off. For a moment, the orcs stopped, puzzled by the ferocity of the human response. As far as they knew, humans never fought in this manner when so lightly armed.

Littorio did not wait for their response. His orders were already given. "Gunners, One pace rearward." The mercenaries hastened to obey. They were already reloading when Caledra made her way there.

"Front Rank, Kneel."

Once again, the mercenaries followed their orders to the letter, and this time Caledra was better prepared. She stood apart from them, just so she could see the result of their volley fire technique. The orc contingent had begun to march forward again, only to be met by another hail of withering fire from the line of levelled guns. Scores of orcs fell down, and only a handful managed to get back up. This time however, the gunners from the Gilnean line cheered as they made a good impact on the massing Horde army. This might just be the start of a battle, but Caledra felt a twinge of elation

The battle had started well enough.

"Gunners, On my position." Not content to be alone, Erich strode out from the thicket of pikes and stood a few yards away from them. His men hastened to obey their captain, and Caledra ran to join them. Being alone between two clashing armies was not somewhere she wanted to be.

"Gunners, Kneel." This time it was Erich giving the order. Littorio understood what was happening and deferred his command.

Instead of ordering his gunners to fire Erich made a complicated series of hand gestures to Littorio, who nodded. Most of the men burst out into grins and smiles. A couple of them muttered something about a taunt.

The orcs were beginning to advance again, this time in a far more determined manner. Officers shouted orders, bringing some semblance of sense to the line and several spells from the totems snaked their way towards the Alliance lines, only to be put out by Jaina Proudmoore's magecraft.

Erich walked a pace ahead of the rest and faced the horde. Then at the top of his lungs, he shouted. "Come on you honourable orcs. Come and die." He finished with a spit he hocked up from the bottom of his throat.

Incensed at such a challenge, the orcs let out a bellow that echoed across the battlefield and began to run at the human lines at terrifying speed. Erich nodded.

The order to aim and fire was far quicker this time, and for a third time, the front of the orc line collapsed completely. This time however, there was no hesitation. Dozens of banners fluttered wildly in the breeze as the orcs began to bear down upon the line of gunners.

For their part, the mercenaries did not wait to be left to the tender mercies of the orcs, choosing instead to run towards their own lines. Caledra and Erich were the last to make it through the line, and the last thing Caledra heard was Luigi's voice telling the pikemen to brace.

For his part, Erich was quick. He made his way to where Luigi and Jaina stood. Squeezing the former on his shoulder, he stopped to catch his breath. Then the two began to cackle wildly as if sharing some private joke.

Jaina Proudmoore disliked being kept in the dark about the matter. "Well, captain, what is so funny that you burst out laughing at the beginning of a battle."

"Nothing, my lady. I just lost my month's salary and gained it back."

A burst of gunfire punctuated his reply, and Littorio walked up over to them, with a look of disgust on his face and holding a purse full of coin. "They are firing at will. With the line of orcs so thick, it will be a miracle to miss." Erich nodded and took the coin purse with a grin before passing it on to Luigi, who promptly pocketed it.

"Explain yourself. A battle like this is no place for a wager."

"Well it is simple. You said the orcs were talking about honour. I found it amusing, because the concept of honour and glory doesn't apply to orcs. Littorio had the idea that they weren't orcs at all, while Luigi said that they were a strange breed we had not encountered before." Another volley of gunfire ripped through the orc line, and the shouts of both man and orc were replaced for a moment by screams and grunts of pain.

"So we made a bet. I said that they were orcs who did not understand honour. Nothing new. Luigi took the median position, and Littorio thought they were a different race. We found out that they were honourable, which means I lost money, and that they are certainly orcs, which means I gain money."

"What are you talking about?" Caledra asked exasperated.

Erich turned to look at her and grinned. "I told them to come out and die. They broke their own lines in a rush to get to us. They are dumb enough to be real orcs." And with that statement he was bounding away towards the cannons.

* * *

Hans hated this part of the battle. He was a Middenlander, born and raised. Battle was not nothing to be shied away from, but embraced. Ulric would judge him on his valour and skill in battle when Morr came to claim him. Waiting on a bent knee was smart and would probably help win the battle, but it went against much of what the gods had taught him. Hans smiled when he remembered that much of the independent spirit had been beaten in front of him. Lone heroes were like the Norscans. Quick to spring up, and quick to fall. It was together, arm in arm that the empire of man had survived and thrived.

If there was someone who was enjoying this battle, it was Erich. Hans could see him now, chatting with the gunners, and cheering as the cannonade made it's mark. A long time he had been destined for one of the many gun batteries stored in Nuln. Fate and ambition had turned the man into a mercenary, but like every noble with an expensive education, Erich Von Peiper was not afraid to show off what his breeding had given him.

Fighting alongside him, the mercenaries knew he was obsessed with cannons. Most Captains of his station would have sold off their bigger guns for heavier armour. Instead Erich had stuck by them, using them mostly to terrorize unruly hordes of peasants. There was nothing like grapeshot to make an angry mob remember their oaths of fealty. Still, using a battery was somewhat of a rare treat for Erich, and he was relishing it fully.

Right now he was arguing with the engineers, pointing out targets to them and talking about arcane mathematical terms that Hans could scarcely recognize and could not care about. The plan was somewhat elaborate. The work of the cannons was to pulverize any orc movement on the flanks of the army. From what Hans could tell, it was working. The flanks were not under threat, which meant that the halberdiers would stay in reserve.

He was not the only one concerned with the lack of action. Brother-Aspirant Phillip was pacing around in circles, muttering to himself. Catechisms and oaths to sigmar and ulric were the most common, along with tales of black fire pass. Warrior Priests were supposed to be orators and inspirational in the midst of battle. Phillip certainly looked the part. The man was almost as big and muscular as a Norscan huskarl and had a deep booming voice that could easily lead a mass of men to tears. A shame then, that he had failed when it mattered most.

Hans felt bad for the man. The empire was no stranger to religious strife, and for his part, Hans had a scepticism of the Sigmarite faith. Man was not meant to be a god, no matter what the Cult of Sigmar said. In some ways, Hans could relate to Myrmidia more than Sigmar. The southern goddess might be a pretty and exotic tart, but she was divine. It made sense for generals and leaders to worship her because her ken was the grand theater of war, while it was Ulric's place at the heart of battle. Besides he had seen the power of her divinity with his own eyes.

But Sigmar was a man, and men who ascended on the path to godhood were followers of chaos. Besides, in life he worshipped Ulric, so by rights the followers of Sigmar should follow in his footsteps and worship the god of winter and wolves.

Hans grunted. He had tried arguing that with both Erich and Phillip. The former had drank enough beer to become insensate and then laughed it off, telling him that it was silly. The latter had used all the tricks of his priestly education to make Hans doubt himself. Having a large reserve of the famed Middenlander wit, he had apologized and walked away, knowing that the dastardly Sigmarite was trying to convert him. That would not do. Hans might not have tutors or an university education, but he knew well enough. Ulric was his god, and nothing would ever change it.

Soon enough, it would be time for all the trickery of blackpowder to dissipate, and the ring of steel on flesh. It was there that battles would be decided. He would need to patient, like the hunting wolf. It was almost time to come to grips with the despicable orcs. If a foe as bestial and brutal as the orcs had weapons to level entire cities, it was a foe to be fought at the earliest. Hans despised sorcery, but it would be better that magic be on their side than the greenskins'.

After what seemed like an eternity, the cannons stopped firing. He heard Erich order something about switching to grapeshot and switching fire to the centre of the orc ranks. Hans knew what kind of terrible toll it would reap on a concentrated army. Middenlanders might prefer siege towers to cannon and consider guns unmanly, but against a foe as ruthless as the orcs, every advantage was key.

Meanwhile Erich was walking back to assembled men with a spring in his step and a smile on his face. Even if he knew the answer, Hans could not help but ask, "Everything going well captain?"

"Oh well, you know. Our centre is thinning out and the orcs have almost broken through. The idiots have no idea what is waiting for them." He might as well be talking about his bride.

"So, what do you want us to do."

"Wait for the battery to open a breach, and then we move in and give these orcs something to fear."

Hans began to organize his men, while Erich and Phillip helped push the cannons. After a span of several minutes filled with grunts and curses, the cannons were finally deployed over the breach in the lines.

And not a moment too soon. Hans ambled over to take a look and swore. Erich was taking a big risk with the battle. The Gilneans and the Tileans had drawn up into squares to better brace against the relentless assault of the orc army. They had given ground as planned and had fought their way towards the bluffs, where their flanks were protected. Meanwhile the Alterac and Lordaeronian phalanxes were pushing inward around the orcs, herding them into place. The battle had reached a critical phase.

If the line in front broke, the orcs could reorganize and decimate the forces attacking the rear. If the line held, the orcs could be trapped and ground down to a fine powder. It was a messy plan, but it was the best Erich had.

"Halberdiers, Up!" He commanded, and they hastened to obey.

"Where do you want the grapeshot?" the cannoneer asked Erich, grinning from ear to ear.

"First two volleys in a spread out area over the front. Once the orcs are pushed back, you are going to cover our advance. The orcs are in disarray, a sharp shove means we can breach their formation and drive into their centre."

The man nodded. "Good luck Mercenary."

"Happy hunting, sailor." Erich replied with a smirk.

"Alright boys, you heard the captain. Time to chop us some greenskins."

The men were in a hurry to come to grips with the foe, and began to form up into a marching column. Hans took his place at the front, with Phillip and Erich at his side. He took a sharp breath, and counted till ten.

"Halberds, march!" Hans had given the order more times than he cared to admit, yet each time it was a thrill. Men united with a purpose, marching to war for Ulric.

Someone down the line began to recite a marching song as they went past the cannons, and soon enough everyone was singing the hymn to Ulric, even Phillip.

 _Far beyond the mountains_

 _Over passes filled with snow._

 _Our fathers came to this grim land._

 _To clear the earth and sow._

 _We are beset by horrors beyond the pale._

 _Dark Beasts, monsters and Evil Gods_

 _Hunt us in the trees and in yonder dale._

 _To arms, brother the forest stirs once more._

 _We must stand brother against brother._

 _Against those that seek to claim our souls._

 _Trust in the Lord of Battle and Winter before another._

 _For he guided us as long as we keep our promise whole._

 _His fire shines bright in the Ulricsberg._

 _Guarded by men of stout heart and strong arm._

 _We who march in the fields and glens._

 _Trust in his judgement for it leads us from harm._

 _A hurrah to Ulric, the god of Wolves and battle._

 _Who scares away the northman who raids our pastures._

 _He who led our fledgling tribes when we stole cattle._

 _And the bane of the dark gods that would feast upon us._

 _A hurrah to Ulric, the defender of the North._

 _He who smashes the Norscan and brings the winter storms._

 _Hail Ulric, father of the hoarfrost and wolfpack._

 _We keep thy flame burning bright in the Temples_

 _And we ask thine aid in driving our foes back._

The song was a grim reminder of what it was Ulric tasked them to protect. He was a harsh god, and to lesser people he might seem cruel, but to Middenlanders, who had lived under the eaves of the forests, a stern hand was better than the floweriest of wishes.

These orcs had never faced the wrath of the Winter God. It would be a name they would soon fear.

* * *

Like all good sons of Sigmar, Phillip had a healthy aversion to magic. It was accepted knowledge by all civilised peoples that magic was inherently chaotic in nature. After all, it was the hunger for power that turned man against his brother and led to the worship of dark gods. It was sinful, and no matter what the colleges of magic or the elves might say, Mankind was not meant to use magic. Which is why seeing the swirling bolts of arcana flying around the battlefield made Phillip angry. This was not what a battlefield should look like, with foul magics colouring every skirmish and combat with their intensity. It was repugnant to a man of his sensibilities.

Their march had brought them up behind the Tileans steadfastly holding their ground against the orcs. While they might be worshipping a strange southern god, Phillip was at ease with them. They were stout men and true – insofar as southlanders went. The cut and thrust of mercenary life had a refreshingly honest quality to it.

Now they were rallying around a small hillock, fighting to keep the orc from breaking through. Every so often, the old veteran Littorio would give a command, and the gunners would unleash a volley of shot on the orcs. This close to pikes, missing was not a concern. They were taking a terrible toll on the orcs.

But all their stalwart soldiery was dwarfed by the sorceress they had rallied around. Even from here, Jaina Proudmoore dwarfed everyone with her spellcraft. With her hand raised she summoned ice floes, blizzards and bizzare amorphous shapes of water that crashed upon and drowned the orcs by the dozen. Sharp spikes of ice would pulverize masses of greenskins, or they would drown in a deluge of water. An aura of terrifying might surrounded her, causing everyone to turn and take a look at her. Despite his loathing of magic, Phillip had to admit that the only reason why they were even in the battle was because of the magics they wielded.

Erich whistled tunelessly. "Like the Tzarina, but if she was blonde." Chuckling at his own remark, he raised a hand. Everyone stopped. Erich turned around and raised his hand at the gun battery. After a moment, the cannon fired it's barrage at the orcs trying to work around the flanks.

Despite himself Phillip winced as the sound of hundreds of bullets flew over their heads and slammed into the mass of orcs. In his drunken rambles, Erich had often boasted about the power of grapeshot. There was a school of thought in Nuln that promoted Tilean bronze cannon which would keep pace with the infantry and provide both long range and close range support. The intricacies of War College doctrine was as alien to Phillip as magic, but now seeing the effect it had on the orcs, he had to admit that there was something to the point.

The closest orcs had been torn to shreds. A pile of dark blood and gore now covered the ground ahead of them. The sudden shift in the tide of battle had not gone unnoticed. The assailed Gilneans, suddenly free of the pressure threatening their side cheered and rallied. One of the beastmen who were allied with the mercenaries raised it's hammer and a bolt of light shot out around them. Even this far away, Phillip could feel the effect of the magic. To his surprise, instead of dark magic making his skin crawl, it felt soothing. All his latent fears and doubts were washed away – replaced by a quiet determination to protect all that was good. His faith, his friends, his duty.

Nor was he the only one. The Halberds suddenly seemed sharper and more alert. For his part, Phillip gripped his warhammer with far more conviction than he could ever remember. The gilneans, close to the magic were filled with vigour began to advance. The orcs tried to put up a desperate resistance but the momentum had shifted against them. With a shout and a piercing yell the Gilneans drove into the orc front which melted away towards the tightly packed mass of orcs in the centre. Erich's gambit had worked. The orcs were tired after hours of fighting, and they were facing a foe that was resurgent and fresh. For their part, the Tileans held their ground against the majority of the orcish assault, which seemed to be focused on the sorceress. The front began to shrink as the Gilnean advance moved inexorably toward the tilean line, fighting orcs in it's way.

"Form battle ranks" Erich whispered. Hans bellowed the order and the Middenlanders began to break apart their column and form a battle line.

"Halberdiers, move to engage." Erich commanded, while drawing out his sword. Phillip knew then where they were going to fight. Their job was to engage the mass of orcs between the two contingents and pin them into place.

The last hundred or so paces turned their slow and steady march into a charge. The front ranks of the halberds pointed straight ahead and ran into the mass of orcs. Their leather and mail armour was no match for good and honest empire steel and the orcs that tried to form a line to blunt their charge were cut down by the halberds in short order. Hans was in his element, beheading the orc leader trying to get it's dim witted underlings in order with a clean stroke.

For the next hour, the battle slowly started to go their way as the Gilneans kept moving towards the Tileans while the Halbediers covered their inward flank and the Alteraci contingent covered their farther flank. This was going splendidly. This close against a resurgent enemy, the orcs would be jam packed and would have scant space to manoeuvre, rendering their advantage in numbers moot.

The first orc that Phillip could claim for his kill was a strange one. While it's fellows were armed with axes and wore chain or plate armour, it was dressed in leather and had vicious claws for weapons. It singled Phillip out in the thick of battle and cast a bolt of lightning at him. For a moment, Phillip's body was wracked with pain for an instant before anger replaced it. No orcish sorcery would deny them victory this day. As the orc raised it's claws for another spell, he took the opportunity to charge in close.

This close to the orc, the smell of blood, sweat and what smelled like dung seemed overpowering. It reminded Phillip more of a village in the empire than any savage greenskin encampment in the badlands. Taking advantage of the orc's surprise, he hit it in the belly with the hammerhead savagely. There was little space to swing his hammer, but he had been taught well to use the sacred weapon even in the most confined spaces. To Phillip's pleasure, the orc coughed up blood and tried to stab him with it's claws Phillip neatly sidestepped the clumsy attack and went for the throat, jabbing it with the spike. The orc gurgled and fell down before it's body grew still. Phillip was dragged back into the line by the halberds.

"What are you doing?" Erich asked him while reloading his pistol.

"The orc spellcaster was working with foul magics" Phillip grunted.

"I know, you ruined my shot." He shot back.

"Pick another one Captain. Plenty of orcs to go about." Phillip offered.

The pistol rang out after a moment, obliterating an orc's kneecap.

The trap was closing on the orcs and their exhaustion was telling. Surrounded on multiple sides by the advancing contingents, the orcs were now desperately trying to keep their rear lines open. Bit by bit, their resistance was crumbling as their officers fell to pike, shot, spell or halberd.

The final stumbling block came when the Orc leader, an ashen skinned brute in full plate armour rallied the remainder of the army. Human bodies, both tilean and gilnean lay at it's feet as similar orcs formed a rough shield wall to hold the pikes at bay. There was a spark of cunning in that orc, as it had kept what passed for it's elite troops in reserve. Erich remarked as such.

"Clever bastard that one." He gestured with his smoking pistol. "Kept his black orcs in reserve to form some kind of elite formation."

"What? Then we are not winning?" Hans asked exasperated. The man's face was red from all the exertions of the battle and he was huffing and puffing.

"No, this cunning specimen had no chance of deploying his crack troops to the front. Our trap closed in too quickly. Still, he will make us work for our victory." He mused, scratching his chin.

Just then, the shield wall opened up, and the orc strode forth. Even with it's hunched back, it stood taller than Erich and it's muscles would make a norscan feel unmanly.

"Alliance dogs!" It yelled with a loud voice that carried over the shortened battlefield. "The spirits alone know what sly tricks you used to steal this victory from us, but we will not go down without a fight. You face the Kor'kron. If there is one amongst you who has the courage to face me in single combat and face a warrior's death, then do so."

Something snapped in Phillip's mind when he heard that. This sort of bragging was ill suited to orcs. Years of fighting all manners of horrors of the old world had steeled his mind from the most grotesque horrors of the old world. Yet, this orc talking about courage when it's kind had massacred a city full of defenceless people made it obscene. This sort of braggart needed to cower as it die, and that was something he was willing to do.

He strode towards the orc holding the warhammer in his hand, and chanting from the _Deus Sigmar._ The story of the young warrior who had saved Kurgan and received the Ghal Maraz as a gift of thanks was the story of the Empire. To stand beside yesterday's foe as today's friend. To wage righteous war against those that would seek to harm humanity. To face the most horrific foe without flinching. This was the way Sigmar had forged the Empire. Through faith and steel.

Suddenly the hammer in his hand did not feel so heavy any more, and the exhaustion of the past hour seemed to melt away. This was his trial of faith all over again. And this time he would not back down. The prayer on the eve of battle came to his mind, and he repeated it without a second throught. The gods had been fit to give him another chance to prove his faith.

He looked through the orc for a moment, reliving the glories of Sigmar before his eyes. Of the forming of the empire, and the battle of black fire pass. When the Necromancer Nagash fell before the might of he Heldenhammer. He walked in the path of legends and heroes. Their example sustained him.

He would regain his faith, or die in the attempt.

* * *

Erich looked away as Phillip strode away to accept the orc's challenge. It was not his place to object. Brother-Aspirant Phillip might be a good comrade in arms, but he was something of a fifth wheel in the cart that was this mercenary company. The man he had rescued all those years ago had slowly lost bits and pieces of his dignity. To spend one's entire life dedicated to a cause, only for it to shun you must have been crippling. After arriving on this new continent, the man had slowly but steadily decided to end his life.

He supposed it was fair. Erich had seen what happened to priests that had lost their faith. Most of them would indulge in every possible debauchery before ending up with their throats slit in some dark alley corner somewhere. It was a supreme act of faith that Phillip had adhered to the teachings of the church for so many years while in a mercenary outfit, but the edges were starting to fray. Perhaps it was good for the man that he would die in battle than in a alleyway.

Erich's job was to win the battle. Thankfully it was drawing to a successful close. The orcs were on the verge of routing, and as soon as the Gilneans pushed closer, their line would waver. The black orcs would be the last to flee, but alone they could be picked apart by gunfire or spells.

He turned to see his men holding their ground stubbornly against the orcs. His plan had called for a continued retreat towards the ridge as the battle had drawn on. It had not been obeyed. Erich smiled. For all his doubts, Luigi had the makings of a fine leader. Most would not have rallied around a witch, no matter how pretty she looked. Jaina Proudmoore had anchored their line and around her his men had broken savage assault after savage assault from the horde. Erich had watched with pride as his men had beaten back wave after wave of shouting orcs with moderate casualties. The wounded had been dragged to the centre of the formation and were bleeding or dying around the witch.

Now it was time to administer the final blow which would shatter the orcs. He swung his sword leftward, and the halberds began to push in that direction, slowly cutting through the orc line like farmers reaping crops. Imperial Halberd techniques might not be flashy or the subject of songs, but they were reliable. A series of sharp stabs, cuts and hacks were all that was needed to fell the toughest foe.

The middenlander line advanced in a thin line, shouting the name of Ulric and cutting down any orcs that came in contact with them. Some of the braver greenskins would manage to cleave at a man, only to be taken down the next one. This close up, their axes or their armour was little match for the sharp spikes made of Imperial steel. Slowly but steadily, the orcs were losing their will to fight.

And then, at once, their resistance crumbled. One by one, the orcs began to turn tail and run away, dropping their weapons in their haste. The gilneans cheered and began to chase after the stragglers, but Erich's men held their ground. Orcs were like the tide. They would recede and return again. The only way to defeat an orc army for good was to strike at the leader. Maybe once Phillip had met his warrior's death, Erich could have the orc line blown apart by grapeshot.

The first tileans that they reached cheered. Up close, Erich suddenly realised that the battle had been much closer than he had assumed. The men were bloodied and haggard. Many pikes had their tips cut off by the cleverer orcs, effectively turning them into large poking sticks. Their armour had been rent and several were clearly struggling to stand straight. Torn clothes had been turned into makeshift bandages to staunch open wounds. This had been warm work.

Now bolstered by linking up with their allies, they fought with a new savagery. Down the line, Erich heard Luigi's clear voice ring out, ordering an advance. With the singular shout of Myrmidia, the tilean line sprang into a final push once more, attacking the orcs. They were now being annihilated in a battle they had no chance of winning.

A hundred or so orcs broke free from Erich's trap and began to run away. Fatigued, Erich thought that it would be kind if Jaina Proudmoore froze them solid. Almost as the thought entered his mind, he heard Luigi ask her to do the same. The chilly winds followed by a report of gunfire told him that his problem had been solved.

A cheer went up from his mercenaries as the last orcs began to finally break free and run. The battle had been all but won. Erich saw Luigi being hoisted up on the shoulders of men who still had the energy to lift him up while the remainder merely chanted "The ode to Monte Castello."

Much to Erich's consternation, his enjoyment of the music was broken by the approach of Josiah Miller. The Lordaeronian contingent had completed it's envelopment, and were just as bloodied as his men. Even from this far away, Erich could make out the shape of Serra drawing arcane sigils in the air. "What is it Captain?"

"The orcs have been defeated. It is a great victory."

Erich smiled and nodded. "Take some rest captain. Tomorrow we have to bury many friends."

Josiah smiled. "Many more would have been lost if it were not for the Paladin at your side."

Erich's smile vanished. What was a Paladin doing here so far away from Bretonnia?

He turned to look towards the duelling spot, and saw that it was overrun by a mixture of troops from Gilneas and Alterac congratulating each other. Another figure was raised above their shoulders.

It was a familiar, bald pated figure. But there was something different about the figure of Brother Aspirant Phillip. There was a terrible radiance around him that seemed to emit it's own light. The hammer he held seemed to glow for a moment before flickering out. After a while when the man had been deposited, he strode towards Erich and the mercenaries as a man reborn.

His stance was something more akin to a statue of Imperial heroes. The warhammer, which was heavy enough to require both hands to hold now rested comfortably over one shoulder. The other hand carried the head of the orc leader. Phillip tossed it at his feet with the casual grace of a foppish noble. But the eyes were what drew everyone's attention. An hour ago, Phillip's eyes had been a warm brown colour as was common amongst the people of the empire. Now they were golden. A light shone from him, judging everything and everyone. Several of the Mercenaries fell down to their knees, seeing the apparition.

Through sheer force of will, Erich managed to stand. Seeking to cut out the sombre moment with a quick remark, he smiled and asked Phillip, "Have you found your faith Brother-Aspirant Phillip?"

A soft shadow of a smile played around the man's face. "No." Each syllable rang loudly in Erich's ear. "My faith has found me."

Turning to a dozen or so orcs that were still alive, he pointed his hammer at them, and spoke in Common. "Those ones. Let them go, Captain. Let them run back to their warlord. Let them deliver our message. The wrath of Sigmar marches upon their kind."

* * *

 _ **A/N Well, it has been a month and a half since I updated my story. I had to go to the hospital for a bit, and was then grinding in WoW to prepare for the new expansion. Sorry for the delay.**_

 _ **Mythule1, the only numbers come from a single line in the blurb of the chronicles, which seems to be a pretty low number in comparison to warhammer.**_

 _ **Srosnan99, well you will find out soon.**_

 _ **Blindedinabolthole, of course. Volley fire doesn't matter when everyone is an expert l33t marksman.**_

 _ **John0092, thank you.**_

 _ **Drakenheime, yeah logistics is key. But who needs logistics when you have portals amirite?**_

 _ **TheHappyVampire, wait till they get to a major alliance city.**_

 _ **Rhivan, I hope you enjoy reading this chapter.**_

 _ **Solarblaster, of course. Nothing like an ASUR know-it-all.**_

 _ **TheTrueSkull, Portals are fundamentally a game mechanic that is hamfisted into the lore. You generally have portals to fixed points in the lore. It took Medivh/Sargeras and Gul'dan at the height of their power to work together to open the Dark Portal to Azeroth. Entire armies very rarely move via portal and many of the ingame portals are made by powerful lore characters who are mages like Khadgar or have a high level of attunement with a power like Alleria and her void portals. The PCs that everyone plays are by definition exceptional characters. If portals were so prevalent and stable, the need for regular supply lines would be vastly reduced. Teleportation requires a massive amount of magical power, as Khadgar and Occuleth discuss in the attack on the Nightwell.**_

 _ **deadliestfan, thank you for the indepth review. That is a lot to chew over.**_

 _ **My point regarding logistics is that it is primarily from Erich's perspective. He is running a mercenary company and has to pay for their upkeep out of his pocket. The old world exists in a constant state of war and should have a much higher grasp of logistics than Azerothian armies that have had a few decades to sort it out along with massive technological changes.**_

 _ **Regarding Alliance tech. Erich has not yet seen what the Alliance is capable of. Keep reading. He is going to have his mind blown.**_

 _ **Regarding Azerothian Morale, a lot of it seems to be extrapolating from player feats. For every exceptional Player level character, there are many Jitters, stormwind footmen or militiamen. In contrast the morale of the mercenaries or old world armies in general is a product of drill, camaraderie and a shared history of continuous combat that goes for hundreds of years. Chaos invasions are regularly described as worst nightmares and are ground down and defeated through tactical acumen and a handy helping of faith. Old World faith - as far as humans are concerned - is basically Scarlet crusade on crack. The fact that they are veteran mercenaries who know what happens when people break formation is what keeps their fighting capability so high as the battle goes on. I modelled them on the Spanish Tercios at the height of their power in the 80 years war when they were veterans who knew the importance of fighting and organised methods of withdrawl in contrast to a general rout. A lot of lore you mentioned comes from Knaak's work which blizzard itself has been shifting away from.**_

 _ **Regarding Forsaken Strength, a lot of forsaken require body parts or alchemy to keep their bodies from rotting away. The PC does quests ingame, the novels mention that their organs are on the verge of falling off and require a lot of maintainence - with the bonus of easy replacements.**_

 _ **Artilyonrand, thanks for the support.**_

 _ **Drakon, exactly. People take ingame mechanics as serious lore. For example in the boralus intro, the portals from Boralus to stormwind are established in a place of powerful magic where tideseers had been practicing for years and require constant maintainence.**_

 _ **Guest, regarding Legion, maybe an epilogue at the most. This story will go throughout MoP and end after the trial of Garrosh.**_

 _ **Guest, you will find out soon ;)**_

 _ **DarkWanderer18, warcraft elves live for millenia. Anasterian was three millenia old. Alleria had been fighting for hundreds of years before the second war.**_

 _ **guest, thanks.**_


	43. Chapter 43

**Refitting for Battle**

* * *

Caledra was woken up by the sound of a door creaking on it's hinges. In an instant, she sat up straight, with her hands reaching for her sword. Northwatch might be a step up from sleeping on the ground in a tent, but it was unfamiliar to her. She heard the voices of Erich – who seemed to have been woken up – Hans and Luigi in a conversation. They were in a different room, but with her keen senses, the conversation might have been next to her.

"How many." Erich snapped.

"A dozen or so. Too afraid of those goats." Hans grumbled.

"A pox upon the obstinacy of Middenlanders. They would rather die?"

"Their souls are at stake, Erich."

"They were fine with Phillip healing them yesterday." Erich growled. Caledra heard the sound of drawers being opened and clothes being put on.

"They have known Phillip long enough." Luigi ventured to reply.

"Last month, his eyes did not glow golden." Erich retorted. "Oh so the broken down clown of the company finds his faith, and suddenly he is a spirit healer, but some goatlike wizards that fought orcs alongside are too strange for the toughest bastards on this side of the sea to handle."

A moment's silence filled the room. Then the three of them burst out laughing.

"Are you still going to badger them?" Luigi asked tepidly.

"Of course I am. Until we get back, each one of our own we lose us irreplacable. And we lost enough in the battle." Caledra heard the sound of heavy leather boots being put on.

"Besides, its her turn to lord over the fort today."

Caledra sighed. Erich had not forgotten.

A month. It had been a month since they had annihilated the Horde forces sent to occupy Northwatch. Life had changed it's pace from the sombre farewells of fallen comrades, to elation at a crushing victory, and once more to an unpleasant hum-drum of garrison life.

A month since Lady Proudmoore had left them. She had gone right after the battle, remarking that this was the first strike of many against Garrosh's horde. Caledra had felt the power of the draconic device in her grasp. It had perhaps even rivalled the sunwell in it's arcane potency. A weapon crafted with such a powerful item had obliterated Theramore. Now, it would be employed against the Horde. She only hoped that it would hit them where it hurt.

But it was not her lot to bother about the grand scheme of things. No, her focus was on making sure that the fortress at Northwatch was properly garrisoned. It was mundane task, and something she excelled at. The Horde – all of it, just not the orcs – had left enough supplies to stock their force for months – maybe a year – without any trouble. There was enough powder, dried meat, firewood and other sundry resources to keep a force many times their number content.

She had set about this task with vigorous energy the day after the battle. The Night elves led by Shandris had killed the few stragglers still left behind in the damaged Keep and marked the supplies for the Thalassian rangers. The medicines and bandages had come in handy. After burying the dead, the small force – if a rag-tag group of soldiers could be called a force – had retaken the keep. Even as she stepped out into the sunny barrens sky, the banners of the Alliance, Alterac, Theramore and Gilneas fluttered in the breeze along the uppermost battlements of the keep. The Horde banners were under lock and key in the armoury.

The fortress around her buzzed with life as hundreds of humans ran around carrying tools and goods with which to repair the fortress. It was her job to keep them working. She sighed resignedly. It had felt pleasant to converse with someone in Thalassian after what seemed like a long time. The rangers that had survived the battle were now out, patrolling the swamps in dustwallow marsh, with Vereesa at their head.

Technically, she was the highest ranking Alliance leader among the assembled forces. After a few hours of conversation with her, Caledra realised that Erich had found her knowledge of warfare lacking to his exacting standards. Over the course of a few more hours, he had shown that the fortress had been attacked on both sides at once, which was why it fell in the first place, and had requested that the youngest Windrunner sister find the route the horde had taken. A high elf was always a better tracker than a human, and Erich could be left alone to organise the Keep's defences in peace.

Not that she understood what the plan was. After a cursory tour of place, Erich had declared that the fortress was too big to be defended effectively. Instead, they had all withdrawn to the Keep. The barracks and the armoury were located close by, and that was where all the wounded had been shifted. Even now, soldiers – gilneans, alterac, a few tilean and fewer high elves – who knew first aid went around changing the bandages of the wounded. While there had been few casualties in the battle, there had been enough injured men and women to need tending to.

It was in these close confines that the ice between the mercenaries and the people of the Eastern Kingdoms had begun to shatter. Caledra could not tell where exactly it had begun. The mercenaries had kept their distance from the men and women of the eastern Kingdoms during the march. There was a cordial distance between the two parties with the mercenaries largely avoiding talking to their counterparts.

Now, sharing beds and outhouses, those barriers were melting like the ice in spring. Teams of men struggled to create the palisade around the inner walls of the Keep, and chattered incessantly. Most of the mercenaries had begun to pick up a smattering of Common, while some of the Eastern Kingdom humans were speaking a broken form of Reikspiel. Grammar was of less concern in these trying times, and a healthy camaraderie seemed to be developing around the cookfires and makeshift tents. To her surprise, the Draenei, elves and the mage seemed to be excluded.

It would seem that the far away land they came from had far fewer of other kinds of races like the Draenei or magic users. The mercenaries were still being treated for their injuries, but the tension between them was palpable. When the Exodar had sent it's first diplomats to Stormwind, there had been panic in the city. Demons from the Third War, marching into the heart of the Alliance. In time, the outlander mercenaries would come to trust the Draenei. There was no lingering touch of corruption amongst them. As a race, they were in tune with the Light.

Teams of men were busy digging a series of trenches in the upper reaches of Northwatch hold. The siege and the fall had damaged large swathes of the outer fortifications. Erich had decided that is was a waste of time to actively defend the entirety of the fortress. In the case of a siege, they would be better off holding off the ground.

She sighed as she entered the quartermaster's tent. The sound of a quill scratching paper rang in her ears. Littorio was sitting down on the floor, amongst a , tallying figures. After the rush of major battles with both ogres and the Horde, it felt whimsical doing paperwork. Still, it was certainly important, as Erich had said to her half a hundred times. The Horde had stored a surprising amount of supplies, weapons and armour in the keep itself, and much of it met his approval. If fell to her and Littorio to sort out the paraphernalia of war.

With a slight nod at the elderly human, she sat down and began to start the mundane task of apportioning the goblin crafted gunpowder. If the Horde were to attack Northwatch again, they would have face a far more tenacious and determined foe. Meanwhile, she hoped that Lady Proudmoore would be bringing help at the earliest.

* * *

Talaena took a deep breath, invigorating herself. Her new G.R.A.P.P.L.E worked perfectly. A gnomish device developed recently, she – like all enterprising engineers – had put her own personal touches on it. The Sin'Dorei found mechanical devices whimsical, but they worked perfectly – as long as they were well made. The rope made of embersilk cloth was nearly impervious to wear and tear, and the titanium grapple was light and strong. She had taken to climbing the crumbling battlements on the far side of the city at night, careful to avoid any Alliance patrols.

Alterac was now firmly under the grasp of the Alliance. The small forces raised by the outlanders had swiftly been disarmed and sent back to their day jobs. The outskirts of the city now hummed with the sounds of construction as the remnants of the city's defenses were rebuilt to withstand a siege. Teams of dwarfs and gnomes had started to construct a siege workshop. Talaena was surprised at the speed at which the work was progressing. It had been hardly a month since the Alliance had disarmed the Alterac populace, and now the city seemed to be an entirely different place than the decrepit husk she had first entered.

Talaena turned around and aimed for a small but clean house near the edges of the battlements. Her morning exercise of dodging Alliance sentries and running the length of the defenses was over. Now she could return home and catch a few hours of sleep. With any luck, she could slip past the two Alterac guards unnoticed.

King Perenolde had provided her with a small squad of guardsmen to keep her safe. The Alliance leadership knew that she was a horde turncoat, but the rank and file might mistake her for a spy. Her time was spent in her workshop, making weapons for the Alterac forces. Her team of smiths and craftsmen stayed nearby, working in the morning before returning to their homes and taverns that dotted the city.

Talaena enjoyed working with them. A dozen or so obedient humans who listened to her commands was something of a rarity. For most of her life, she had operated alone. In Elven society, she had largely operated on the edges. First fighting the ones that had fallen to their magical hunger, then fighting in the wider world, away from Silvermoon. Having people obedient to her was intoxicating. Perhaps this was why her aunt had taken a position. Outlander mercenaries treated her with deference, just like they were doing to her. This was as good a working atmosphere she was going to get.

With a burst of speed that bordered on the supernatural, Talaena ran through the rooftops of the city's residential quarters. Finding her mark, she jumped up and rolled in the air, landing squarely on the balls of her feet. She looked and smirked. She had landed inside the walls of her house, and the patrol was on the other side of the small garden. An Alliance patrol was marching down the street. They hadn't even caught a glimpse of her. Her skills were sharp as ever.

Flush from her exertion, she climbed into the window and shuttered it shut. After a moment, the sound of her guards patrolling the garden reached her. Another morning excursion, done perfectly.

Talaena spent the next hour taking a quick bath, choosing her clothes and hiding her weapons in her boots. Today was going to be a boring day, just like many others – officially at least.

On the face of it, Perenolde had folded once the Alliance had marched into Alterac. To any Horde spy – and Hellscream or Sylvanas would have any number of them – the Alliance had regained a former treacherous human kingdom. The banners of Stormwind and Alterac flew from the battlements surrounding the city. The old tower at the crossroads was being renovated and expanded. The new superstructure was similar to the Zeppelin towers outside Undercity, but far more robust – and far more expensive.

The King of Alterac had very little control over his people. A short visit from Genn Greymane had resulted in the Gilnean people being given a large amount of autonomy. Some Worgen patrolled the streets openly, wearing the colours of the city. This had caused rumblings amongst the natives. Only a few years ago, their kingdom had been ground to dust in the aftermath of the second war. Now the Alliance had marched in once more. From the grumbling of her underlings, Talaena understood that the Alliance was not loved here. She could understand their plight. The Alliance had tried to meddle in the affairs of the Sin'dorei when they were on the verge of extinction. For all their talk of justice and freedom, the powers of the Eastern Kingdoms would have let them die out.

The day outside was quite clear. Talaena felt a twinge of regret as she saw her workshop. Soon enough it would be belching smoke into the clear mountain air. She wondered how her aunt would feel about that. A veteran ranger of Quel'thalas, Caledra had a connection with the wilds that few other elves could match. She had never needed to consume fel energy to stave off her hunger, living peacefully in equilibrium with nature. People like her aunt had been laughed at as fools and worse. For most of the Sin'dorei, they had been vindicated once the Sunwell had returned to it's former glory, and their short stint of hunger was forgotten.

For the High elves that remained in the Alliance, it had become a new home. Far from their ancestral homelands, they had made new bonds with their allies. Her aunt was an excellent example. Fluent in a variety of languages, she had found work in the human city of Stormwind. A lot of high elves had either moved to Dalaran or Theramore, and there were farstrider lodges deep in Alliance territory that continued as if the scourge had never invaded Quel'Thalas. It had always felt strange to Talaena that her own kin would side over strangers against their own families. Now, she knew that things in life were rarely so close cut. She had bonded with several adventurers – trolls, orcs, tauren and undead alike – when her life had taught her to hate them. It must have been the same for the high elves who had been far away from Quel'thalas.

Those questions about life would need to take a back seat however. Quickly changing into a hooded cloak that covered her ears and caused much discomfort, Talaena slipped out of her room and beckoned her guards to follow her. The Alterac Sergeant nodded at her snapped his fingers, and half a dozen soldiers moved towards her, hands on their swords and nodding grimly towards her. The rest continued their patrolling.

Talaena enjoyed her human guards. It felt quite nice to be waited upon. While she might not have the same warmth towards humans as her aunt did, these ones were stoic and grim enough to rival the hardened members of the Ashen Verdict. A lifetime of deprivation had stolen much of their cheer, and the mercenaries training had turned them into hardened soldiers. Talaena had to admit, the outlander mercenaries were most impressive. They carried themselves with discipline that would put most of the Horde's forces to shame. Their leader was an ice cold man. If their situation were reversed, Talaena would have killed Erich Von Peiper. Some of his preternatural calmness seemed to have rubbed off on these mercenaries. There was a feral look in their eyes that scared the Alliance reservists that guarded the city's streets.

Her workshop was already busy belching smoke into the air. Her second-in-command – the former mercenary, Sven – had started work once again. He was not a bright man, but dogged and determined. She did not doubt that he would be busy now, helping his new bride with her task of iron ingots. His grasp of common had quickly become passable, and he could make conversation with most other humans. Most delightfully, he seemed to be in awe of Talaena, which suited her just fine. If more humans were like that, the world might be a better place.

The man came up to her with a sheaf of paper in his hand. "We are ready to start the next phase of operations ma'am."

"Excellent. Have everyone assemble in the hall, I have something to say before we get on with the king's plan."

Talaena was not too good as speeches, her father's side of the family had a reputation of being solemn – which was merely a polite way of saying uncouth – for many of the people living in Silvermoon proper. Still, it was necessary to keep up appearances

For the next half hour, Talaena watched as the hall began to fill up with humans. Their weather beaten faces and stern glares were a cold comfort. It was awkward for the both of them. The mercenary outlander stood next to his wife, yawning intermittently. Finally, the room had been almost filled. It was now time for her speech.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for all you done. A large part of our work has been finished. With the weapons that we have forged, Alterac can grow strong again." Someone coughed weakly. Talaena took a deep breath and said, "That is all. You can take the rest of the day off. The foreman will be paying you this month's salary tomorrow. Thank you."

A few humans nodded grimly and some fool tried to clap. The sound petered out after a few seconds. The workers turned to leave, glad to be given the day off. Talaena sighed. Talking to people still needed practice.

The outlander, Sven, gave his wife a peck on the cheek as the Gilnean woman turned to leave. The two of them were now alone. Then he gave Talaena a nod and ambled over to her office. The first phase of Alterac's military plan was complete.

Talaena walked through the length of the building, noting idly that the machinery was nearly perfect for an assassin or spy to hide behind. Almost reflexively, she ran a thumb across the hilt of her daggers. It had been a long time since she had the opportunity to use her weapons on a target – even a wooden one. For all the cloak-and-dagger games she was playing with the larger alliance on behalf of the mercenaries and Alterac, it was surprisingly boring for the most part.

Sven had already taken his shirt off by the time Talaena reached her office. To any spy, it would seem that they were having a tryst there. Scandalous perhaps, but far less important than what they were really about to do. For her part, Talaena produced a small box from the depths of her cloak. Inside, in the bizarre language of the outlanders was the second part of the grand plan.

The Nordlander – as Sven referred to his native land – began to read. Talaena's ears perked up as the mercenary translated. For all his talk of bringing glory to Alterac, Erich Von Peiper had a pathetically small imagination. With the resources Garrosh Hellscream had given the Bilgewater Cartel, they had constructed a massive weapon capable – in theory – of levelling Stormwind Harbour from Kalimdor. The gnomes had created a new breed of Alliance airships – more capable and less dangerous than their horde counterpart.

Alterac would instead create thousands – tens of thousands – of mundane weapons and the supplies to feed them. The second phase of her plan called for the mass production of gunpowder and tools like shovels spades and the like. Talaena could not help but scoff at the task ahead of her. This was journeyman's work. She had worked with adamantite and titanium under a sky that cradled a shattered world. Bronze and steel were now trivial – if not downright insulting – to her.

"Is there a problem?" Sven asked as he began to clothe himself again. The human's job was done. As usual he tore the pieces of paper before reaching for a bottle of liquor. When Talanea shook her head, he uncorked the bottle and took a swig. Then with a swift motion he swallowed the scraps of paper before washing it down with another, longer draught, of the drink.

King Perenolde had told her to dispose of any traces of the plan. She had come up with this idea. Burning the documents might have left enough traces for an imaginative mage to come up with the document. Having it digested in a human's stomach was ingenious and worthy of the cunning the Sin'dorei possessed.

"You should go. Your wife might suspect something." She said. The outlander quickly shuffled out of the room, looking furtively around for any presence that might be his wife. He need not have bothered. Talaena had tracked down Sven's wife. The woman was afflicted with the worgen curse, and would smell her scent on her husband's clothes. The man was going to end up running into trouble if he kept playing this game.

Now alone, Talaena finally had the chance to sit down and reflect. Writing anything was too dangerous. She got up and made for the exit. There was much to think about and reflect, for tomorrow would be another day where she would get to control the work and lives of men and women of the Alliance for a few short hours. Sometimes, that was what a person needed.

* * *

As long as Phillip could remember, he had been troubled. In his secular life, his size and girth made him push around smaller boys, and be beaten up by larger ones. Life in the church had been dull. Already literate, Phillip had most of his lessons dull, with the only fun ones being the exercises to build up his body. As he had come into adulthood and become a fully fledged novice, a measure of peace had come to his soul. Stripped away with his courage and priesthood during a fight against the beastmen, he had wandered all over the southlands with Erich Von Peiper. The years since then had been the worst.

His faith had been assaulted and undermined every step of the way. The largely Myrmidian Tileans were nice enough, but started to drink when Phillip would talk about faith. Hans' Halberds were worse. Ulricans and Middenlanders, they took pleasure in slighting and mocking him and his beliefs. Phillip had held on to his faith, largely out of spite, even as he had despaired. Sigmar had taught man to be strong. He had been weak, hiding behind the strength of his body.

No longer. A great burden had been lifted from his shoulder. Even as he was losing to the orc, something in Phillip's soul had snapped. The primal fear of death had tried it's utmost to take over him – and it had failed. Filled with a resolve so great that his heart felt like on the verge of bursting, Phillip had laid into the orc as his second wind kicked in. Chanting the stories from Deus Sigmar, he had laid into the orc with a renewed vigour. Then something had changed. A Power had awoken inside his soul. A resolve that he never had before filled him, and the warhammer felt light as a feather even as it broke orcish bones and felled foes. Sparks of divine light flew out when his warhammer met the metal of the orc's armour. There was no doubt then. His faith had been answered. He was an aspiring brother no longer, but a fully fledged warrior priest.

And he needed a chapel. The month had passed by with him hard at work repairing the structure. Phillip might not be much of a builder, but since his reawakening, he had grown stronger. His days were spent in prayer, helping heal the sick or at work shoring up the walls of the fortress. At night, he would sleep in a small room with the few worldly possessions that he had. To his surprise and pride, he had ended up making new converts.

None of them had been the tileans. They just smiled and kept their distance from him for the most part, just as they had before. The Middenlanders treated him with grudging respect. There was no love lost between the cults of Sigmar and Ulric, but to them he was more than a prattling Sigmarite priest. He was a fellow man of the empire, and there were few of them in the Southlands, and fewer still in these strange land. They were happy for him in their own heretical way. Erich treated him largely the same, but Phillip noted that the Captain shied away from anything remotely theological.

His new flock had been the strange people of the Eastern Kingdoms. The process had started by accident. Once the orcs had broken, the first thing Phillip had done was sink to his knees. The tremendous power of Sigmar deserved worship, and he had raised his hands in prayer to the Heldenhammer. The power granted to him for a lifetime of faith were profound indeed, and Phillip had felt waves of power radiating from him, healing his cuts and bruises, and strengthening the resolve of those around him.

He had not thought much of it in the aftermath of the battle. Only in later days, living in the chapel had Phillip noticed that he was not praying alone. A dozen or so of the people in tattered red rags, knelt behind him as he would worship the crude statue of Sigmar. They called him Paladin in their speech. His mentors would have found that funny. Phillip was neither a Bretonnian noble, nor a worshipper of the Lady. Still, they were the first people in years that were even mildly curious regarding his faith. His duty as a Sigmarite was to preach the god's word and deeds.

From a dozen or so, his congregation had grown to half a hundred, mostly people from Alterac and the undead infested lands of Lordaeron. It had been rather simple. They worshipped an abstraction – the Light. A just unifying force that healed the sick and brought comfort to the dying. It sounded nice, but as with all things inherently good, it lacked a certain punch. Something that connected to the inner strength and ruggedness of the human spirit. Sigmar had been a man before he had been a god. It was only proper that they turn to him in such dire straits. In his more introspective moods Phillip wondered if the tables had been turned, if the people of the Empire would have turned away from Sigmar.

It was not unheard of. There were reasons for the generals and soldiers of the empire increasingly turn to Myrmidia as the empire began to use more gunpowder. War was quickly becoming colder and clinical. Even the stoutest Middenlander now grudgingly agreed that guns were better than the humble crossbow. Like every change in society, it was met with fierce backlash. Luthor Huss would rant and rave about the corrupting influence of blackpowder. More fanatical soldiers would pick fights with gunners and artillery crews. Above all there was always the chance of misfiring. Men inherently distrusted weapons that were likely to blow up in their face instead of the enemy's. Despite all that, the southern goddess had grown in popularity amongst the ranks of the generals and captains of the Empire.

His work had not come without it's problems as well. For every man and woman that he had converted, four had been outraged. A hundred or so were standing outside even now, waiting for their turn to pray in the chapel. Even as he got up, he heard the lilting tones of a woman speaking to her congregation. It was one of those days.

While the chapel was in use treating some of the sick soldiers, it was primarily used for prayer. With thousands of people milling about in the fort and it being the only place sanctified enough, problems were bound to break out. Erich had posted guards after one of his men had shanked by a pair of angry Lordaeronians. Their bodies had long decayed but their bones still hung on the nooses erected by the Keep.

Ever since then, they had all decided to pray during certain times of the day. The elves and the men of the eastern kingdoms would have it for the majority of the day, while Phillip and his Sigmarites would have it for an hour or two around mid day. Most Southlanders were busy drinking and gambling, while the Ulricans scoffed at the chapel, praying to the god of wolves by drinking copious amounts of rum.

As they left the building, Phillip was greeted by over a hundred people waiting for them. They were standing in a half circle around their priestess as she preached to them about the mysteries of their faith. Phillip stopped and listened for a few moments as Scarlet Priestess Elodie – that was the poor deluded woman's name – preached about those that had gone astray from their faith. The Light would forgive them, if only they would repent their apostasy.

From his own education about the different faiths of the Empire, Phillip had surmised enough of this Light. They worshipped Alluminas, the god of light, and the principal being worshipped by the wizards of the White Order. As far as magic went, Light was the closest there was to pure. Sorcery was inherently chaotic in nature, but Hysh was far too diffuse to corrupt. Used by the most powerful spellcasters, the Light could banish the dark magic that permeated so much of undead sorcery. Still, Alluminas was a weak god compared to the raw might of the Heldenhammer. It was no wonder the Light did nothing for the people of Alterac and Lordaeron. Their land were crawling with Ogre bands, undead and worse and their deity had abandoned them. Of course, they did not see it that way.

Some of the less devout men and women turned around as Brother Phillip and his flock were leaving. Already inflamed by having to wait for their turn in the chapel, they quickly began to harangue him and his converts.

"There they go, the bald blasphemer and his apostate."

"For shame, they have turned away from the Light."

"They are worse than the Traitor Arthas!"

One of the more zealous ones hurled a piece of brick at them. It struck the pavement in front of him and broke into a dozen pieces. Almost by instinct, his hand gripped the handle of his warhammer, and he turned towards the crowd with indignant rage.

Nor was he the only one. A dozen of the tileans with swords in their hand began to make their way towards the two mobs. One of the men, with a better grasp of Common than the others waved his hand and tried to disperse the crowd to little effect. It looked like there was going to be blood. Most of the mobs were armed with swords and knives. If something happened, it would be through no fault of Phillip. Sigmar was a god of humanity. It would be a black day if the only priest of Sigmar in these parts were to break skulls with his warhammer.

Much to his relief, the bell in the Keep began to ring. Everyone turned to stare at it for a moment. The army had encamped around the inner fortifications, and sharp eyed guards had been posted on the few remaining towers. Their job was to keep a lookout for anything suspicious. This did not bode well.

"Gods, what do I do?" One of the tilean sentries asked no one in particular. Phillip answered, "Get the Captain, he might want to know."

The two of them, along with some of the more devout of his new sigmarites ventured to find Erich. As they began to make for his quarters, the sound of a horn rang out. Once more, Phillip froze momentarily before he remembered the noise. It was the horn of the long eared elven rangers. They must be returning from their scouting. Undoubtedly, they would be making their way towards Erich as well.

As he began to make his way towards the barracks, Phillip saw that a crowd was gathering around the makeshift walls. The rangers were pushing a path clear for their commander. Then he saw the reason for the crowd. He and the Tilean froze solid. Four of the elven rangers in their dusty gear had formed a guard around their leader. Six more surrounded a pair of figures that had doubtless drawn the camp's attention.

One of them was an elf. Tall and smug, he carried himself with an air that was arrogant and pompous. His rich scarlet and gold robes added to his general appearance of aristocratic living. The looks he cast at everyone in the camp were those of mild amusement and rank disgust.

The other was clearly undead. The rotting stench, shambling gait akin to a reanimated corpse and the rusted armour all told of an unnatural abomination. To top it all off, the thing wore a tabard with a shattered mask – the sign the undead at Pyrewood and Southshore had fought under.

His anger reigniting, Phillip changed his course and strode towards the escort. He did not realize when the hammer had appeared into his hand but his rage was so great that the blessed weapon glowed with a faint golden light. The band of elves stopped, and a pair of them nocked their arrows as they waited a command from their leader.

The silver haired elf raised a hand and said, "Outlander stop. Come no further. These are emissaries come to parley."

"What are these filth doing here in our encampment?" Another voice broke in. Hans had doubtless been polishing his dwarf forged armour, and clutched his Halberd so hard that his knuckles were turning white. Their shouts brought Erich out of the barracks, staggering and with a bewildered look on his face. While benign under a haze of drink, his expression hardened as he saw the richly attired elf and the shambling Forsaken.

The silver haired elf was angrier than the three of them combined. She fought to keep her voice calm as she spoke. "These are emissaries of the Horde that requested a meeting with the commander of Northwatch."

She was almost immediately interrupted by the elven diplomat. "I am afraid that is not the entire truth." The elf cleared his throat and continued. "The Warchief is leading an army and a naval flotilla is approaching from Orgrimmar." A pause. Then the voice got unnaturally loud. The bastard was clearly using magic. "This garrison is doomed. Garrosh Hellscream offer you an honourable surrender. Yield and the Horde will show you mercy."

A buzz crept throughout the camp. Hundreds had come to see the commotion. The bell in the keep had stopped ringing. They had spotted the approaching fleet. Phillip could see the worry on everyone's face. The mercenaries who had a grasp of Common furrowed their brows and muttered amongst themselves. The men of the Eastern Kingdoms did likewise. For his part, Erich just stared at the emissaries dumbly.

"I await your answer." The elf eventually concluded, looking at Erich as though he was a worm.

"No."

Erich's reply was loud enough to be heard by everyone that had gathered nearby.

"What? You cannot mean it. Surely you see that you are surrounded."

Erich twirled around and faced the assembled men and women. "You hear that lads, the ponce says we surrender to an orc. What say you?" As if to show where his thoughts lay, he cocked his pistol and pointed at the Diplomat. The Elven rangers escorting the diplomats trained their bows on him in turn.

"Hang the live one by the neck until he smells as good as his friend!" A middenlander shouted from the crowd. The buzz was replaced by a cheer, mostly by the mercenaries. Surrendering to orcs was preposterous. To Elves, shameful. To the undead, fatal. Besides, they were spoiling for a fight. A month of digging ditches and waiting for reinforcements were putting the men on edge.

Erich turned to the two diplomats. "My men say no, and I am of like mind. We worked hard to take Northwatch, and we intend to keep it. No Horde Army or Navy is going to take this fortress while we are still fighting."

The elven diplomat drew himself up to his full height. "So be it. The Horde offered you a chance to surrender honourably. You have refused. We shall be here soon. Northwatch fell to the Horde in a matter of days. The City of Theramore fell to our might in a week. You shall be crushed like -" His imperious speech was cut short by a swift punch to his mouth by the Silver haired elf. In the blink of an eye, the arrogant cur was on the ground.

Phillip had seen his share of vicious fights, but the elven woman was something else. She clearly excelled in combat. A surprise punch would stagger someone but it used to take several follow ups to bring someone down unless you knew what you were doing. She screamed something at the elf in their own tongue while the expressions of the rangers hardened. A few hands went for their swords in anger. She must have had friends in Theramore.

The corpse helped the elf back up. With an ostentatious bow he reached in his robes to bring out a handkerchief to clean the blood streaming from his mouth and nose. He stared at the elven woman with and made a ponderous sigh. "Lady Vereesa, you are the least of your family – or what remains of it." Then he smiled at her.

"Elf. Leave and tell your warchief that if he wants the Keep, he can try. By the time this battle will be over, Hellscream will be impaled on the gates of Northwatch."

The elven diplomat shot a glare at Erich, and made to turn away. Then the corpse finally opened it's mouth. "Brave words for a Man of the Empire. But this is not the Old World. Azeroth has it's own rules and we have eyes on you, Myrmidian." It was delivered in largely fluent Reikspiel with a Bretonnian accent.

"And what do you know about us?" Phillip snapped back. The undead they had fought had used necromancy. This one was an unfortunate Breton caught in the crossfire when they lost their ships coming ashore.

"Enough, Sigmarite." Had the face not dessicated, the smile would still be off putting. The corpse turned over a rucksack and a few items fell out on the ground. "Von Peiper." He said, turning back towards Erich. "You have chosen poorly. The Dark Lady sends you a taste of things to come."

The two emissaries turned around and began to leave the camp. The rangers would escort them a safe distance from the fortress. He made his way towards the contents of the sack and turned them over. There wasn't much. A ship's rudder. Broken and burned altar, an image Manaan, and other sundry bits. Then he found it. A golden ring, with the finger still attached. Phillip knew the ring. The Ship's first mate, a gruff Marienburger never bet it on anything, no matter how badly he would be losing. This was a not just a warning.

It was to be their fate.

* * *

 _ **A/N: Sorry for the long wait. I had some stuff to do IRL and then I forgot. There are too many reviews for me to go through.**_


	44. Chapter 44

**The Plan**

* * *

Serra took a deep breath, inhaling the salty air blowing in from the sea. From her room in the tower, she had an excellent view of seaside fortress. The waves were close to the children of Cothique, no matter where they may be. While the richer nobles of the other Kingdoms marvelled at the calmness of the Inner sea during their sojourns to the White Tower, It had always seemed sterile to her. Serra had beheld the raging outer sea crashing against the stern cliffs of her homeland. Nature was unbound there in a way that the genteel elves of the inner kingdom could never understand.

Now the waves crashed against the crumbing harbour at Northwatch keep. Even from her room in the tower she could see the dark shapes in the distance. Enemy ships belching dark smoke, tainting the sea breeze. Her namesakes called them Juggernaughts. There was no grace in their design, reminding her of the shoddy construction of Human architecture. Under the aegis of those eyesores, smaller more agile craft drifted closer to the harbour. Serra could make out the heraldry on the ships. An inversion of the colours of the High elven rangers. A golden Phoenix on a field of red.

Serra found it odd that beings that called themselves the elves would fight on the side of greenskins and the undead, but that was a moot point – suited more to polite debate in the gardens of Lothern. They were foes, and they were out for her head. All she had on her side was a much smaller -albeit battle hardened – army of humans.

So it was only proper that the first blood of the siege belonged to her. One of the flying contraptions in the fleet had made the mistake of scouting the forces in Northwatch. Serra's concentration had been broken by cannon fire levelled at the thing. Angry at the sound of the sea being shattered by gunfire, she had climbed to the top of the tower and levelled a volley of fireballs at the thing the people of Azeroth called a Zeppelin. It had been warded against sorcery of the common sorts, but Asuryan's fire was no mere elemental flame. The thing exploded with the sign of the phoenix, seen by both besiegers or besieged. No goblin captain had dared to venture over the fortress ever since.

The whispers tugging at her mind were little more than a nuisance. She heard names and places she cared little about. Of what use were N'zoth and Yogg Saron to her. They were the problems of Azeroth. Her task was to find a way back home. And she finally had found someone or something that could be of help.

Far to the south, beyond misted seas like those that protected Ulthuan was a realm. Dark gods conspired to thrust it into war. And far below the surface, was a being. A relic of the Old Ones that had made this world, it's intelligence was vast enough to rival gods. It knew of how they travelled through worlds. She would ask it for help.

Serra sighed as she saw the name she had written on parchment. Pandaria. A silly name. The ship's captain had laughed when he had heard of a hidden land to the south. She hadn't bothered to press home the point. Humans were dumb and hardly worth talking to, no matter what world they inhabited. She trusted her divinations than human knowledge.

As for the rest, the approaching siege occupied her thoughts. From the top of the tower Serra could see the siege lines form. A cornucopia of banners sprouted in the distance, at the edge of her natural vision. Towers were being constructed to harry the wall. It was of little concern to her. The spells being cast on them were filled with enough latent power to destroy them if it came down to it. Only another person was as unconcerned by the siege towers as she was.

Erich had managed to climb the tower one day while she was busy channeling the winds to be more pleasant. Serra had seen her fair share of humans that were in a bad state, but Erich Von Peiper was in an odd state. The heavy bags under his eyes told her that the man had not been sleeping well, and he muttered under his breath from time to time. Accompanied by both Vereesa – the highest ranking Elf – and that blonde trollop Dawnweaver, he had taken a cursory glance at the siege towers before shrugging his shoulders and sitting down on the roof and writing a variety of measurements with the chalk. Nodding to himself, he had gotten up and run down. A day later, a dozen or so humans had dragged one of the ship's cannons and placed it there. Despite her complete lack of knowledge of blackpowder, Serra had to admit that it was an excellent vantage points. The catapults being raised would have a hard time reaching the tower, and the gun would have an excellent position on the walls.

Then there had been the explosions. From the whispers she had heard in the mess tents and loud guardsmen, Erich had been wasting extra ammunition marking down places where they could fire artillery. There were eight of the damnable blackpowder contraptions that shot their explosive shells in a high arc. Four were sighted on the still intact section of wall and four more were targeted at the miraculously intact docks that were made to shelter warships. After a few days of sporadic bombardment they had stopped when the plunging fire had been enough to satisfy the irascible mercenary Captain.

All there was to do now was wait. For her part, Serra was putting this time to good use. Several of the elves seemed to have lived in Dustwallow marsh for a long time. They had been kind enough to deposit some extra herbs and medicine in the tower. She had helped herself to those. The potion of Charoi was a precious resource not to squandered lightly. However, decades of experience had turned her into a competent, if uninspired alchemist. She had isolated several useful essences from the local flora and fauna, and used them to create a variety of potions to replenish her mental fortitude in battle.

They filled part of her satchel. Just because she could, Serra uttered a small spell of levitation and watched with childish glee as a bottle filled with a pale and shimmering blue liquid floated in the air towards her. As time went on, she was becoming used to the magic of Azeroth. The library at Stormwind said something about magic being held by a network of Ley-lines throughout Azeroth. From her own researches into the Vortex of Ulthuan and small parts of lore that the Slann had deigned to share with the White Towers, this network was roughly similar in function to the world prior to the collapse of the Warp Gates.

Even as she watched the potion refract the light streaming into her room, Serra could not help but feel a tinge of regret. The first elves had lived in a world of plenty, watched over by the gods and creating wonders of life and love, free and blissfully untouched of the influence of Chaos. Ever since then, the Elves had been on a decline. Their vaunted colonies had been lost to the dwarfs. The Outer Kingdoms had been ravaged when Malekith had tried to end the world in his petulant tantrum. Every passing century their strength waned while the nations of men rose up like weeds in an unkempt garden.

Greater minds than her had doubtless come to this conclusion. How was it even possible for the Asur to thrive once more? Why hadn't the likes of Finubar and Teclis tried to preserve the glory of the High Elves instead of bartering the wealth of Ulthuan for influence in the lands of men. Perhaps the more traditionalist nobles had the right of it. The outer world had only brought sorrow and heartbreak into the realm of the Everqueen. It would be better for the High elves to leave the wider world to it's own fate. It was a disquieting thought.

Serra's mind ran back to the day she had been sent across on her mission. Despite the flowery language of her patron, she had enough knowledge of the outer world to know what was going on. The humans were pawns to be sacrificed in the war between Malekith and the Phoenix Court. She was little better. An up and coming mage from the Cothique countryside that would not be missed if she was to die or end up as a slave to the Druchii. If she had succeeded, her star would rise, and she would gain much fame. Fame in a city that died even as it thrived on trade with the wider world.

Almost unbidden, the memory of Marienburg came to mind. The human quarter of Lothern had felt vibrant and excessively full of life in contrast with the stately ruins of empty Elven Palaces in the city proper. Marienburg was exponentially more. Feeling lost for a time, Serra had wandered through the bridges over the Canals before eventually coming to a halt on a slender bridge. Humans passed by her not caring that they walked next to one of the eldest race. To her delight, she realised that the bridge was of elven make – from the time when the city had been an Elven Colony in the Old world. The fact that it still stood proud – serving far more people than it's architects had dreamed of – was a testament to what the Asur meant to the world at large. Much like the bridge, the Legacy of the Asur lived on. Prince Teclis and his companions were still regarded reverentially by the Wizards of the Empire.

Then the epiphany about Ulthuan's legacy hit her. The sublime fact that even as the Asur might dwindle in number, their legacy was greater than ever. Every human that fought alongside the children of of Ulthuan would remember their grace and skill at arms. Every Wizard in the Empire gave thanks to Hoeth before starting their day's study. The nations of the Old world grew rich on trade secured by the High Elven fleets that patrolled the seas of the world. Like the seeds carried by birds would give rise to new trees in the forest, the memory of the Asur would live on in the wider world. Hundreds of years from now, Men and dwarfs would grudgingly accept that the Everchosen was defeated through the work put in by brave asur sailors destroying Norscan armies from invading the empire through the Sea of claws.

Galri Asur, they had shouted as the Norscan longships had turned to flee back to the North. Now Serra realised the full importance of the word. Malleus was the Legacy of the Asur. The Vortex had stabilised the world when the Old Ones had left it for dead and the victory of Chaos was assured. Every struggle – no matter how futile – and every victory – no matter how fleeting – had the hand of Elvenkind in it. As long as the World endured, the Legacy of the Asur would stand triumphant.

Serra felt her worries melt away as she pondered the depth of the ancient battle chant. Then from the battlements of the tower, the horn announcing the enemy assault sounded. With a deep breath Serra grabbed her staff and placed her circlet on her head, before slinging her Satchel across her body. It was time that the Horde would learn to fear the words as the Norscan had a while ago.

The Galri Asur would sound across the battlefield of another world, as long as Serra of Cothique, a daughter of Ulthuan could still cast spells.

* * *

Hans admired the face staring back at him. A man in his later middle age with golden-brown hair that was just starting to thin out winked back. He ran his fingers over the sideburns and nodded sagely. In the reflection of the dwarf forged armour, he looked as regal as a Graf. How proud would his father – the old village butcher – be to see his own thirdborn son sitting at a war council with nobles and elves? Perhaps less proud of the latter, but everything Hans the wide eyed State Trooper had dreamed of had come true. He was rich – with foreign coin – well fed – with food stored by orcs – and armoured in the finest dwarf plate. By rights he should feel terrified. They were besieged by a foe capable of obliterating entire cities. But he was an old campaigner now. Good food, cold ale and warm women were all he needed to look forward to. If he were to die, Hans would go before Morr a content man.

A short laugh from his left startled him. Luigi had been staring at him for a while, and the young man couldn't hold himself any longer. Even as Hans turned to face him, face reddening, Erich looked over the pile of papers he was reading with Littorio. He raised his eyebrows in askance. Luigi simply shook his head and doubled over laughing silently. Brother Phillip – the man had finally earned the title – simply gave everyone else a neutral glance and continued reading from the _Deus Sigmar._

Hans took a sip of the mead. Rodrigo was dead, and so were many others. But at this moment he could easily fool himself into thinking that this was simple camp in Tilea, and they were going to deal with some scattered orc or Beastman raiding. He closed his eyes and began to drift off as the cool ale coursed through his body.

The sound of a cloth flap being pushed back snapped Hans out of his reverie. He had almost forgotten where he was but the people entering the tent jolted his mind back to alertness. The captains of the different companies – picked by their own ranks – entered the tent. The one called Miller shot Phillip a dark look before taking his seat. The Gilnean woman – Crowley – smiled at Luigi and was rewarded with a sly wink in return. The boy certainly was a charmer. After a few minutes of greeting an impatient stillness began to settle inside the tent. The elves weren't back from their scouting report yet.

The three companies – at Erich's insistence – had taken new names to go along with their banners. The contingent from Lordaeron had taken the name of the Scarlet Company. Hans had been reminded of the Reiklander regiment with red caps, but it fit their aesthetic. Lorna Crowley, the noble mistress of Gilneans had named her company to be the Second Gilneas Brigade. As for the Alteraci company...

Hans looked at the man to his right. The Captain of the Eagle Company, Edward Morley was a veteran soldier. Hans knew the type. Gruff and grumbling, the man had a fondness for ale, one that Hans shared. They took turns emptying the pitcher. By the end it had become a competition. Turning to him, Hans slapped his back and chortled. "You drink like a fish." Hans managed to say after a few seconds of thinking. Common was an odd language, and downright hard to speak when he had downed a copious amount of liquor.

"And you speak like an ogre." Morley shot back, not to be outdone. Hans looked at the man – blurred vision and all – to see if there was any ill will behind those words. After a moment of introspection, he decided that it was a joke and obliged the man by laughing loudly. There was something extremely funny at being compared to an ogre. As far as the other inhabitants of the Empire went, Ogres were not bad. They had the strength of dozens of men, were straightforward and drank enough to render a squadron of Kislevites insensate. As long as there was a halfling with a hotpot nearby, they were amongst the most steadfast troops and noblest mercenaries.

"Hans, do you have some free time?" Erich enquired without looking over the papers he was reading. Hans replied by belching loudly. Someone – probably Luigi – laughed at the answer.

"Go outside and throw up." He continued.

"What? I just finished my ale?" Hans replied. Erich might be joking.

"Yes, and now you are going to bring it all up."

"Why? I can handle my drink."

"You will be asleep in half an hour. I do not want to plan a siege with one of my sergeants pissing himself as he mumbles about Reiklanders and the Drakwald. Get out. Vomit your gut out, then come back. Otherwise don't bother returning." There was an edge in the voice. Erich was not his usual flippant self.

Hans could have argued, but decided against it. At times like this it was better to do what the man giving the salary wanted. He rose up, feet unsteady and lurched towards the outdoors. His head swam, and walking those few steps made him feel extremely sluggish. Once or twice the bile began to rise up in his throat and Hans swallowed it back down, feeling the acrid taste in the back of his throat.

Outside the sun's glare hit Hans' eyes. Instinctively, he moved to cover his eye with his hand, and then with his cap. Just looking up brought the bile rushing to his throat, and he barely made it to the nearest latrine trench to empty the contents of his stomach. The remnants of his lunch, marinated in both the juices of his stomach and the pale golden ale spilled glistened in the sun. The smell made him retch, but there was nothing else to throw up.

Hans dragged himself away from the malodorous place and staggered to one of the bigger tents used for serving meals. Some of the men inside were middenlanders mostly in different states of drunkenness or nursing particularly bad hangovers. A couple of them raised their mugs and bottles as greeting. He waved them away and made for a barrel filled with water. He lapped it in his hand and splashed it on his face and neck. Feeling sick and mercifully clearheaded, Hans sat down and began to reflect on what he had done.

Garrison duty had dulled his senses, and with the tension of the last two weeks he had drifted naturally to the bottle. Erich had ordered strict discipline while they had waited. To his shame, Hans had slipped after the siege had begun. Worried about letting his Halberds get injured, Erich had ordered them back to their tents and only leave when practicing drilling. A lot of Middenlanders in a besieged fortress with large provisions of drink could have ended in only one way. It should have been his job to keep his men in line. Instead he had been leading them into drinking instead of drilling. If his seniors were here, Hans would have been whipped and demoted. No, if He were commanding this force, he would have done the same.

Erich's biggest fault in his men was the almost unhealthy love. The man had was a Von, but he had always been loathe to act like a stuck up bastard. Most captains and officers in the Empire were of Noble blood. Hans knew of a nobleman in the State Troops. The last son of a cadet branch of a cadet branch of an upjumped merchant family, the man had an aura of arrogance about him that repelled everyone nearby. He died a brutal death, screaming about his noble blood in the infirmary tent. Until he had met Erich, every noble he had fought under had that same overwhelming air of arrogance. For seasoned commanders and mighty warriors like Boris Toddbringer or Emperor Franz, it helped bolster the men's morale. To the common soldiery, people like them were incarnations of the Gods in the flesh. They had said that Sigmar had come down again at the Battle of Blackfire Pass when Franz had fought there.

Unlike them, Erich actively disdained the trappings of Nobility. From his drunken ramblings, Hans had surmised that the man had been bullied and beaten by people above his station for all of his life. He would seldom dine with other leaders of Mercenary bands or princes – preferring to drinking and whoring with his men in the alleyways and slums of the common peasantry. Bretonnian pages had mistaken him for being common peasantry long enough to turn it into a running joke amongst the company ranks. He actively agonised sending his men to fight, writing copious notes that he would read once or twice before using the parchment as kindling. Men of Von Peiper's company would know that their Capitan would send a fat purse to their grieving mothers and wives. Most leaders and officers would rather corner the money and build manses for themselves in the heat of the city. Erich for his part had all but given up on his dreams of rebuilding the Von Peiper fortune because he couldn't stand to see his own men and their families suffer from want. The man would die in splendid poverty, with a blade in his hand and surrounded by men who would fight to the death for him, like a heroic Norscan Chieftain leading his Huscarls.

He could not in good conscience go back – a half drunk mess – into the tent and embarrass the Captain. Besides, he was a humble Sergeant. His duty was to his men. His middenlanders. And they were mostly half dressed and drunk. A rabble of Bretonnian Peasants could defeat them now. This would not stand. They were Men of the Empire. Grim stoicism in the face reality bending Horror had sustained them time and time again. He would not – could not – go before Ulric and Morr, a hungover mess, mewling as he accepted judgement like someone arrested by the town watch. He was Ulrican. If he would die, it would be covered in the blood of his enemies and with a firm grip on his Halberd.

Getting up was easier now. Hans stood up, and saw every eye in the room turn to him.

"Alright boys. That's enough drinking for us today. I want everyone assembled for a drill in an hour. We are about to fight a big bunch of orcs, elves and undead. We are gonna show these bastards how Middenlanders and men of the Empire do battle."

Hans made a promise to himself then and there. He would never drink enough to embarrass himself, Ulric or his Captain ever again.

* * *

Erich stared at the map he had composed over the last few days. It was passable for field work, The lines were crooked and the scale was nonexistent. If he had shown it to his professors, he would have had to repeat that lecture. Still, most of those old bastards had never mapped in the middle of a siege before. And he had to admit, his sketching was not as bad as he had remembered. With a little bit of practice and some memorization he could return to his academy days.

The six to eight pages he had sketched now lay on the table on top of the map of Northwatch in it's prime, roughly creating a detailed outline of the fort in it's current condition. The lower barracks and dockyard had all been rendered uninhabitable, but it would work as an excellent strong point. Large parts of the wall in the north had crumbled, making an assault there all but impossible. Further inward, the road towards the upper citadel had been sighted and marked for bombardment by mortars.

It was a good effort, and Erich had fainted enough from exhaustion trying to get accurate readings. Most of his men couldn't draw an arse from an elbow, even they liked the former more. Luigi was intelligent and quick witted, but the boy had no formal training. Littorio would be doddering around for months trying to get correct bearings. If Rodrigo were alive he would have done a good enough job. It had been months since the man had died, and Erich still woke up at night remembering his bloody corpse lying on the bed – the white linen sheets turning a dark red.

Erich realised as of late that he was having nightmares far more frequently. He would wake up covered in sweat at the middle of the night and fruitlessly try and go back to sleep. The strain of the siege, the bloody hand by the Dark Lady, and the constant wait for a battle that would likely end in his death and dismemberment was playing havoc on his resting time. Several times, he had sat down to write notes only to be woken up hours later by some captain or sergeant coming in to consult him. It was a good thing that the officers he had chosen were all skilled at managing their own companies. Myrmidia knew that he would be making massive mistakes handling his men's needs with the efforts needed to plan a defense of the ruined fortress. Even rum had lost it's flavour, and turned into something Erich drank to help him fall asleep. Once this siege was over, he would either sleep like a newborn baby – or he would be dead. Either outcome suited him more than the horrible haze he was in right now.

He turned to look at everyone else sitting or standing inside the room. His captains were all here, curious and inquisitive. Luigi was all ears and was twirling a lock of golden hair like a flirtatious frau. The wizards stood apart, while Phillip gave them dark looks. The two elves, Ranger General Vereesa Windrunner and Caledra Dawnbreeze had taken seats next to him – as befit their rank. It took some mental effort not to cast lingering glances at the latter. Perhaps it was the soft lighting of the brazier, or the fact that he had not seen her for the last few days, but Caledra Dawnbreeze looked resplendent.

Her long hair had taken on the colour of living flame and retreated under her cloak. The leather and mail armour she wore brought out her curves to the fullest while masterfully showing no skin below her chin. The pale skin of her cheeks was now flush in the dim light, and every time she looked in his direction Erich felt his heart skip a beat. Of all the people in the world, he had fallen for a long eared elf. He should be laughing at this absurdity. He opened his mouth to say something and at that moment Caledra turned to look at him. His mouth went dry almost instantly. Shaking his head, he took a sip of ale to steady his nerves. They were in a fight for their lives. This was no place for childish attraction.

"Ladies, gentlemen and assorted sellswords." He began, waving his hands around. Focus on the matter at hand. That was for the best. "The enemy has all but prepared his siege engines, and we can expect an assault when the weather permits it. Captains, if you have any names you wish to give your companies, this council will be the appropriate time." Another sip of the ale. Erich needed to be careful lest he get drunk. It would be embarrassing if he were to end up drunk at his own war council. "What do we know about our enemies' disposition?"

The male goat legged creature got up. Erich flinched involuntarily. The elves and the human sorceress – Dana – seemed to hold these Draenei in high regard. His men less so. For starters, the creature was huge. Almost as big as a Minotaur, the he towered over everyone else in the tent. His armour was a mixture of strange mail and leather that seemed to be magical in nature. A shaman, he called himself – perhaps a kind of bray shaman that the Beastmen would follow to slaughter and destruction.

"The spirits say that they outnumber us three to one. Half of their force is made up Orcs – both Mag'har and the fel tainted ones. The other half consists of Goblins, the Blood Elves and small numbers of Tauren, Trolls and the Undead." Out of the corner of his eye, Erich saw Caledra and Vereesa flinch momentarily when they heard the term 'blood elves.' For his part, it was hard to understand the Draenei's accent. It sounded eerily similar to the language of the Kislevites. It was certainly something he had not expected the creature to sound like when it had opened it's mouth.

"Thank you. I will take it from here." Erich ran his fingers through his hair, wondering what a Tauren was. Trolls were going to be a problem. As far as Erich could tell, the only way to defeat them would be through fire. He prayed to Ranald hoping that Serra would throw a lumbering fireball or two their way. It would be a particularly gruesome death to be molten in a pile of troll vomit.

"As you can see, the walls along the seashore have crumbled extensively, making a head on assault from that direction all but impossible. The siege towers will therefore be focused on assaulting the area surrounding the gates and the inner walls. Defending these walls will require volunteers." He paused to look at everyone in the room. "If any company wants to defend the walls, they will be dropping their pikes and picking up swords and shields from the armoury."

After a few moments, Captain Miller raised his hand. "With your permission, the Scarlet Company will defend the walls to the last man." Erich noticed that the man had spent a considerable amount of time dyeing his tabard so that it glistened a bright red. He simply nodded before saying. "Not to the last man. If three towers dock along the wall, your company might get overwhelmed and annihilated during the retreat. I want the Scarlet Company to fall back and regroup."

At the center of the map, where the roads from the dock, front gate and rear get met, was a big circle. "This is our first point of rallying. My Company will be stationed here at the start of the battle, ready to repel any enemy breakthrough. Instruct your soldiers to fall back along the road to this position if you need to retreat. Does anyone have any questions?"

Morley raised his hand almost immediately. "The road is too narrow to allow thousands of soldiers to retreat even in the most orderly manner. If the enemy is hot on our heels, we will be overwhelmed in the streets and butchered. Doubly so if your company is trying to reinforce the front line while others are retreating down the road."

"Yes, an unorganised retreat will end up killing more of our forces than any direct assault. To this end, there will be organised artillery support covering our retreat. We have managed to restore eight of the goblin mortars to working condition and have them organised in a battery to prevent the Horde from breaking through and surrounding any company." Erich pointed at the citadel. "The battery is here, behind the defensive palisade wall. The effective firing range allows us to cover everything from the docks to the intact wall sections by the gate. They will also be relatively safe from the counter fire of the enemy's siege weapons."

Then there was the matter of defending the docks and the crumbled wall segments along the coast. Lorna Crowley raised her hand. Erich circled the broken barracks with the word Gilnean scrawled inside. She requested a cannon with extra grapeshot to cover the approaches to the barracks, something that Erich was glad to give to her. The Gilneans took to guns more readily than Hochlanders and seemed to be as skilled as Nuln's finest in using Blackpowder. Under their disciplined volleys any marine attack was sure to take heavy losses and falter. Mass movement of troops was bound to be limited in the ruined quarters of the docks. The side with the prepared defenses and knowledge of terrain would easily stop ten times the enemy number before being forced into close quarters combat. He mentioned artillery support if either Lorna or Miller needed the firepower.

"How will we be communicating with the artillery batteries? We have no gnomecorders to make use of, and our mages will be needed at the front line at all times." Crowley piped up immediately. Erich considered asking what a gnomecorder was but chose to let the matter drop, choosing instead to answer her question.

"The ship's crew is going to be manning the artillery. I am sure everyone has grown sick of the explosions happening last week, but they have been instrumental in laying down lanes of fire for our bigger guns. If we are to pull through this siege, it will be on the backs the crew of the _Lady Mehley._ They will be targeting the enemy based on the company banners."

"What do you mean?" Miller stated in a puzzled manner. "Are the mortars not going to be providing fire support directly?"

"No. Recalibrating the guns will take too long of a time in a battle like this. The mortars have been sighted and fixed to provide shellfire at two locations. They are -" Erich used the blade of his sword to mark the one farther away. " - here and here." The intact outer wall and the dock were covered with fresh scratches. "Observers at the keep will keep an eye on the two locations. If someone needs artillery support wave the banner as frantically as you can. Between our artillery, discipline and general prepared positions, we should be able to reap a bloody toll on the Horde assaults. As long as they are forced to attack us in a staggered manner, their numbers shouldn't be a problem. If all goes well they will not be able to assault the upper citadel itself."

"What of the rear entrance to Northwatch? We will need forces there to prevent a rear attack and prevent an open assault on the citadel." Vereesa Windrunner was a clever commander, and she had seen the gaping hole in Erich's plan for defending the fortress. The rearward walls were considerably larger and he did not have the forces to defend both it and the front from a sustained assault. When an all out assault would come from the Horde forces, the Keep along with its mortar and cannon batteries would be lost and the forces fighting in the ruined lower half of the fortress would be surrounded and exterminated. There was only one way to prevent this eventuality from coming to pass.

"It will not be defended. Instead, knowing that the enemy is going to attempt either a naval landing or send forces from smaller passes to flank us, I have decided that the best defensive strategy in this case would be a Sortie." Erich paused for a moment to savour the mood in the room. Being on the defense was always drained morale. Even in the grim and stoic faces of his war council, there had been an air of fatality. If they were to defeat the Horde, the orcs would be back before long – they always did. Anything that took the battle to the enemy – inflicting disproportionate losses upon them was sure to raise the morale of the defending force.

"The Horde army outnumbers us three to one and they have Battleships and destroyers. If we were to launch a sortie, the unfortunate souls would be torn apart by cannon fire or the Horde's ranged troops." Vereesa grimaced as she told them the fate of the proposed sortie.

Erich simply shook his head. "I agree. A full frontal sortie would be suicidal. Which is why we aren't going to assault the enemy besiegers. We are going to ambush the Horde assault on the rear gate." To his delight, Vereesa Windrunner smiled in turn.

"And you want me to lead the sortie, with my rangers in the vanguard."

"That would be an excellent idea. The Eagle Company will provide you with the manpower needed to engage the enemy." He then turned to look at Lorna. "Captain Crowley, would you mind letting Ranger General Windrunner borrow some of your more afflicted men and women?"

He had not forgotten about the Worgen. They were easily identifiable by their excessively baggy clothing that did not tear to shreds while transforming. His men stayed away from them for the most part, and many of the Gilneans mentioned that it was difficult for the cursed to maintain their composure in battle. It was best that they be used as shock troops in the ambush. He had fought enough skinchangers to know what their claws did to mail and even plate.

"They will be glad to take the battle to the Horde, Grand Captain." She replied without missing a beat.

"To make up for the reduction in your forces, I am granting you Sergeant Hans and his command. Once he is done sobering up, I will inform him that he will be supporting the Second Gilnean Brigade when the battle starts."

"When will we be leaving?" Caledra asked. Erich paused for a moment to compose himself. Her voice sounded welcome amidst the crackling fires in the brazier. Bedraggled as he was, Erich could listen to her talk for hours while he drifted into slumber.

He was content with taking his time before replying. "Tonight. It is better if none of you are seen leaving the fortress. This is a risky gambit, and the less the enemy knows about it, the better it will be for us." He paused as an idea came up in his tired mind. "And take Luigi with you."

The young man stood up. "Wait, why? I should be beside you when the siege starts."

"You go where I order you to. Go to the armoury, get a sword and a shield, and report to the Ranger General. That is all."

For the next half hour Erich sat and answered less important questions that he could not distinctly remember. The adventurers were given free reign to support whichever company they wanted. The Draenei male chose to take to the wall. The witch volunteered for fighting alonside the Gilneans, while the Draenei female chose to join the sortie.

He stayed back, wishing everyone luck in the coming battle and watching blearily as everyone left. His body ached as he drifted into slumber, hoping that his fatigue would keep the dreams at bay.

It was the dead of night when Erich woke up. The braziers had burned out and he felt cold. His senses told him that something was close nearby. Surreptitiously, his hands went for his pistol and sword. As he began to cock the weapon, the flap opened and a familiar figure stood, lean and muscled, with the moon shining down on long golden hair.

"I came to bid you goodbye." A man's voice – softer and far more graceful than the most precocious Imperial fraulein. The Pavonese accent chipped away to nothingness by years of fighting in the company of men from all over Tilea and the Empire.

Luigi stood before him in the moonlight – the closest thing Erich had to a son and a younger brother. A lump rose up in his throat. The boy had chosen a large shield, similar to the ones used by Norscans, and a tall and thin sword. He wore borrowed Alliance platemail. On anyone else, it would have looked like a patchwork and ugly. Not on him. Luigi's aesthetic taste – refined by Erich and Littorio – was beyond compare. The lion's head shaped pauldrons were of a golden colour that matched his hair. The blue cloak he wore to cover his back was pinned artfully with a crystal brooch. His armour – silver and blue bathed everything around him with reflected light. The only other bit of gold was a plate belt shaped with the lion iconography of the Alliance

Had the boy asked him to kneel, Erich would have done so without a second thought. Far from being a Norscan orphan without a name serving as a catamite in a brothel, Luigi Von Pavona had the bearing of a Prince. What Erich had to struggle to understand, he had learned through instinct. Valdoz had taught Erich how to be a leader. Luigi didn't need anyone to win the hearts of minds of those that fought alongside him. A smile and a nod was enough. After all these years, Erich had found the person to hand over the reigns of his company to. Now he felt old and unneeded.

"After the ambush, make sure to execute any of the surrendering enemies that are not elves." It was all he could say.

"The Goddess' will?" The Prince in the shape of Luigi asked.

"Yes." Erich found it difficult to speak. Pride and fear wrestled in his heart. He had trained his replacement, but was Luigi little more than a pretty boy in scavenged armour strolling his battlefield? Did all the lessons Erich endeavour to teach him still have a place in the boy's mind or were they gone?

"Why me. Why now?" He asked again. Erich detected a tremor of emotion through the question. Luigi suddenly looked like the round eyed boy whose body had been covered with welts.

 _Because I cannot keep you from flying anymore._ Erich thought to himself. "Because it is time for you to earn your place, Luigi." He replied.

"What shall I do when I return from the skirmish?" He asked Erich.

 _You will grow beyond my shade._ "You will be a lost pup no longer, Luigi. It is time you became a Dog of War.

* * *

 _ **A/N: Well, this chapter was a lot of fun to write. Expect a big battle in the next one.**_

 _ **Guest, IRL must come first indeed.**_

 _ **Kelmoria, As far as the mercs know, there is no rescue on the horizon, which makes their situation a lot more grimmer.**_

 _ **Thehappyvampire, that is the thing regarding religion. People see it from their pre existing experiences. To someone like Phillip who has spent all his life as a priest of a particular religion rooted in the empire's history, his view of the light at best will be coloured by his knowledge of the empire. Which is why he assumes that the worship of the Holy Light is simply the worship of Alluminas by other means. Now the scarlets and the worshippers of light might see it another way.**_

 _ **Guest, thank you. The minor details in lore are some of the most cool parts of warhammer.**_

 _ **DIOS de la nada, Yes it has been a long time.**_

 _ **Machcia, you need not worry about that lol. On the other hand, The Dark Lady is very resourceful indeed. You will find out soon.**_ ** _Guest, I dunno waifu power cannot be underestimated._**

 ** _PrinceSheo, yeah IRL stuff came up that I couldn't avoid._**

 ** _BlindedinABoltHole, Von Carsteins are also semi mythical. The most Erich has fought with would be some necromancer that has raised entire villages worth of bodies to create a ragtag army. The first time he won against Sylvanas as he was fighting in a defensive position and the Forsaken had lost their plague weapons. Someone like Sylvanas will not make that mistake twice. Also the fact that she is now researching about the old world is going to open up interesting possibilities.  
Regarding Talaena, the fact that the blood elves kept themselves distant from the humans along with Garithos' drooling idiocy means that they don't have the best opinions about humans. Combine that with the fact that her meeting with Erich was not exactly the warmest of things, she might just have biased perspective on his work.  
Things like superweapons work if society at large can support them. Alterac is two snowstorms away from collapsing and is being defended/occupied by Alliance forces. At a time like this superweapons are an expensive and ridiculous vanity project. Those resources can be better spent provisioning for an army, which is exactly Erich's gameplan. Don't get me wrong. Things like airships give the Alliance and the Horde their superpower status in the lore. I just wanted to contrast their well oiled war machines with a polity that is recovering from the brink of annihilation._**

 ** _Guest, it would be a heavy tuesday. No one likes being besieged in the middle of the week._**

 ** _Guesterrr, yeah the religious thing is something that often gets overlooked in something like this. I referred to it in my post to HappyVampire. Wait for the next chapter when Phillip has to interact with the Draenei Shaman._**

 ** _Captndetergent, glad you liked it. I look forward to your reviews._**

 ** _Ultor, one thing you have to keep in mind is that Sylvanas got surprised. The first battle was just the Horde forces in Tarren Mill attacking Southshore and being flanked by another army. The second battle was Erich fighting in a defensive location with large numbers of alliance forces guarding his flank and an overwhelming artillery advantage against the Forsaken army._**

 ** _The True Skull, Warcraft in general suffers from a lack of tactics or strategy of any kind. Blizzard tells the reader that every guy is the best general or leader ever and shows it by how they fight in close combat. The BFA intro trailer was the Alliance - the faction with all this hyper advanced magitech - attacking the Horde - another faction with all this hyper advanced magitech - in a decidedly medieval siege battle with siege towers and the like. No one even considered actually destroying the walls of Lordaeron's Capital city. Blizzard literally says that they will remove any bit of tech or advantage that a faction has if it gets in the way of telling a story. I am just following their steps.  
Regarding Chaos gods of law, GW affliates sell material that make references to them. While the minor chaos deities had taken a backseat in lore there is no reason for them to not exist in a work of derivative fiction. I thought that a minor reference to Alluminas - a god of light - would be something a learned man in the Old world would make when introduced to the Holy Light that makes up for the primary human religion in Warcraft. He would doubtless compare that with Sigmar worship prevalent in the empire and come to the conclusion that the warcraft humans might be worshipping a weak god that cannot protect them. It doesn't mean that what Phillip thinks is necessarily right._**

 ** _TheIronSnake, ah, a fellow elegan/tg/entleman eh?_**

 ** _Wom1, read more to find out._**


	45. Chapter 45

**The Siege of Northwatch**

* * *

Caledra inhaled the pre dawn air intently, feeling as though she was only a hundred years old. It had been decades since she had been part of a farstrider strike squadron, stealthily moving through the branches and leaves of Quel'thalas to intercept Amani warbands. When Ranger General Windrunner had asked her to be her second in command, Caledra had almost refused. Her skills had been dulled in these past few years living in the safety and comfort of Stormwind – or so she had reckoned. Right now as her footfalls barely disturbed the bracken and grass of Dustwallow Marsh, she had realised how wrong she had been.

It was one thing being in the center of an army of human soldiers, loud and boisterous. The Half-elf derisively called her companions Lumberfoots. It was fitting if slightly demeaning term. Caledra had scouted occasionally for Erich's band of mercenaries, mostly to enjoy the peace and quiet. The man himself was quite pleasant company, but his men swarmed around him like children, taking too much of his time and leaving him weary. It was no surprise that the man had constant bags under his eyes and took to drink to cope.

The Humans of the old were grimmer than those of Azeroth, and their constant grumbling could get on her nerves. But here amongst her kin, she fell the thrill of halcyon days long gone by, farstrider lodges competing against each other for troll trophies, evenings inside the halls of the Lodges, nestled next to lovers and companions. Those days were gone now, never to return. All she had left now was the hunt.

Erich had seemed confident that the Horde would attempt to wait until the battle was at it's peak before sending a smaller force to force their way through the rear end of the keep and surround the besieged. It was up to the Quel'dorei to stop this incursion by ambushing the would be advance party. The elves from Theramore were confident enough in spotting any horde movement. Ever since Lady Proudmoore had made landfall in the marshes during the third war, they had been scouting these lands. If there had been a cohort of elven rangers in Northwatch, it might not have fallen to the Horde the first time.

The more experienced rangers had already found out the path the Horde had taken the last time they had assaulted the fortress. Troll and tauren tracks had been found leading towards the fortress, along with stray supplies left by the wayside. It had confirmed Vereesa's suspicions that the Horde had scouted out this approach to Northwatch and used it to storm the fortress. They would doubtless try that same strategy again. Only this time, they were unaware that their dragonhawk had been polymorphed.

As the sun rose from behind the sea, Caledra, trailing in the rear of the marching column turned to look back. The early morning mists rising would make their sortie almost invisible from the seas, and with the hills at their back, the Horde would be none the wiser that their trap had been disarmed. It was a surprisingly robust plan and when successful it would neutralize the Horde's advantage in numbers over the besieged garrison. Erich had made a decision that was equal parts daring and desperate. Everything she had known of the man in the months prior was at odds with this decision.

The man agonized over men he lost, had almost been crushed when his friend had been assassinated and had offered generous terms to people that he might have easily crushed at Alterac. Now he was sending them away from a fortified position based on something that was essentially a gamble. Perhaps he was losing his touch. It happened to the best of warriors at some point in their life, and the man had the aura of suffering under a great burden. If so, splitting his forces would only weaken the defense as they would be running off on a wild manawyrm chase.

The other possibility was worse. Erich adored the Arthas lookalike like Caledra had adored her younger brother. Luigi was always like his shadow, clinging to Erich no matter where he went, questioning him with a frankness that would have annoyed many an Alliance commander. The fact that Erich had ordered him to march off to an ambush away from a besieged fortress meant that he had no hope of the siege actually being successful. Armed with heavy Alliance plate and fighting alongside rangers and dour Alterac veterans, the young man would have a much higher chance of surviving than fighting to the bitter end in a ruined fortress.

Luigi's presence had said as much. Erich had given him some orders to be passed along to Vereesa. It had turned out to be a plea to keep the boy safe in battle. It was the first time the young human had been away from Erich and his men in a fight. This sort of fraternal fear for a young sibling was something both Caledra and the Ranger general could relate to. They had both lost younger brothers to the enemies of Quel'Thalas. They had agreed to keep the boy out of the worst of the fighting, while letting him swing his blade around.

The young man was trudging along with Morley at the head of the Eagle Company, talking about something or the other. It was hard to keep her eyes off him. In the grimy and practical tunics of the mercenaries, Luigi looked like a pretty street rat - a perfect rake that fit among the richer youth of the Old Town in Stormwind. In the city, some sheltered noble's daughter or Elwynn merchant may take a liking to him and send him polite letters of rendezvous. Wearing alliance plate and with his head bared and flowing, Luigi Von Pavona looked regal. He would fit perfectly in Varian Wrynn's court as an up and coming heroic nobleman.

She wasn't the only one to notice it either. The humans seemed to be in awe Luigi, casting bewildered looks at the young mercenary or more lewder glances if they were women. Caledra was reminded of the ship's first mate, who had favourably compared him to Arthas. While she had not never seen the infamous prince of Lordaeron, Caledra had seen enough of his statues and paintings to know that Luigi bore an eerie resemblance to him. Her fellow rangers were of a like mind, and shot dark glances at him as they passed him by.

Caledra would have laughed at their glances. Arthas Menethil – even before his fall – had the reputation of being a passionate and hotblooded man who had been manipulated by the Scourge into putting his kingdom to the torch. There was nothing of the Erstwhile Lich King's legendary arrogance and noble aloofness. Luigi was a young man full of life who burst into song amongst friends, played pranks with the younger members of Erich's mercenary band and was quick to apologize if a joke went too far or a task was impossible for him to do. He was often seen loafing around with the company piper, Rudi who was an incorrigible prankster and had a keen eye for women. If Arthas menethil had been a prize warhorse before his fall, Luigi Von Pavona was a pretty pony wearing barding.

It did not make Caledra's task easier. Vereesa had assigned her the task of keeping him safe in the midst of battle. If it was up to her, Caledra would have kept him in the rear of the line and safe from combat. After the battle was decided maybe the boy could be allowed to swing his sword once or twice to sate his budding interest for battle. It was unlikely to be the case however. They were facing a force that would definitely outnumber them, perhaps even two or three to one. More likely than not, Luigi would win his place as the mercenary band's second in command – if he survived the ambush. It was up to her to keep him alive and in one piece. Erich cared about the boy, and it seemed that Erich was a man who would not take kindly to his young ward's loss.

As her thoughts ran back to the grim mercenary captain with a poetically horrible past, Caledra looked up to see the rangers signalling with their hands. The language of the Thalassian rangers was a secretive art only taught to the farstriders. In the long history of quel'thalas, only a single human had ever learned it, and now he was Forsaken. To untrained eyes it didn't even seem that the rangers were signalling with their hands, but she could hear them as clear as a conversation. Caledra turned to let the humans know that the spot of the ambush was close at hand.

Living in the mountains after the fall of Lordaeron had made the people of Alterac tough and capable guerilla fighters. They were careful enough to stay off the trail the Horde force had taken the last time around and knew how to cover their tracks. Most of the humans carried axes or swords and small shields along with their pikes to use in combat once the battle turned into a pitched brawl. Most of the gunners had pickaxes or large knives to go along with their rifles – of little Talaena's making, Caledra thought with an absurd burst of pride – with more homely pistols and javelins. Knowing that they were going on an ambush, most of the men had painted their faces with mud and dust. Apart from some complaining about the heat and humidity, the Eagle company of Alterac – trained by outlander mercenaries and eager to make a mark for their homeland – stood ready to fight as though it was the start of the Second War.

They had scarcely settled in for an ambush when Caledra heard loud boom over the sound of the sea breeze. After a few moments, a handful of similar booms followed along with the distant sound of the Keep's bell sounding a call to arms. Shading the sun with her hand, Caledra saw that the first batch of transports had broken off from the Sin'dorei and Darkspear blockade, and was moving towards the keep at full speed. There was no doubt about it. The siege of Northwatch had begun anew only after weeks of it's fall. They were near the homelands of a new and resurgent Horde, and Northwatch falling to the Alliance after the destruction of Theramore was an insult that the monsters would not forgive.

She sighed and began to trod up the hilly trail, gripping her bow tightly. Sooner or later, the Horde would attempt to win the fortress as they had previously. Only this time, instead of a hapless Alliance garrison cowering behind the walls, they would find a highly trained and motivated force intent on avenging the people of Theramore. Some of the rangers waved greetings to her as she went past them. They were mostly focused in guiding the humans to well concealed hiding spots that would vex even the most skilled tracker. As she reached the summit, Caledra saw that Vereesa was already in a conversation with Morley. Seeing her commander was busy, she waited her turn, keeping an eye on the hills bordering the Dustwallow marsh.

Caledra heard snatches of tactics, on the positioning of the worgen, or on what target the guns needed to be fired. She suddenly found the discussion dry. Erich had a flair when discussing tactics that made everyone in the room sit up and listen. The pure enthusiasm he exuded reminded her of Talaena when she was seven years old, playing with – and tweaking – gnomish toys her father brought from Dalaran. It was always a pleasure watching him fidget over the tiniest details of a plan. This sort of childlike exuberance had become Caledra's new normal, and she suddenly found out battles were a trying time for her sanity. Captain or not, she was never at ease commanding anyone else. When she was a farstrider, it had been different. She fought, and lived alongside the other rangers of her lodge for decades. The last few months with Erich had brought her back. She had all but settled into the boring but comfortable lifestyle of Stormwind's petty nobles and up and coming merchant class but this was truly where her heart lay. Fighting alongside a band of warriors, with the world ahead of her, and friends at her back.

The only other person uninterested as her was Rhona. Caledra had met a few Draenei since she had come to Stormwind. Most of them were supplicants and diplomats, interested in meeting with Bolvar Fordragon or later King Varian. For her part, interaction was limited to translating papers to and from Thalassian and Common. Their age and forbearance left the Night Elves in the dust, for their hatred for the Burning Legion was old when Azshara had nearly doomed the world in the quest for her power. The way they were in tune with the Light made the most devout of human paladins seem like dimwits in comparison. The Exodar was said to have a being of pure light – a Na'aru – at the centre of it's structure like the Sunwell did. Maybe once this war was over, she could use a chunk of her savings to buy a mage portal to the Exodar and visit the wonders of an ancient civilisation for herself. Almost unconsciously she wondered if Erich would like to come with her.

Rhona was a near perfect representative for her kind and their long journey throughout the cosmos and their stay in Azeroth. Her age was nearly impossible to tell. Her face was young, but as the Quel'dorei knew, the age was best seen in the eyes. Her eyes glowed with an inner light that seemed to radiate purity and healing. She was a paladin – but unlike any human or elven one Caledra had ever seen. Unlike the steel and silver armour of the mainstay of the Alliance, the Draenei had crystalline shapes that seem to naturally grow out of their armour. Rhona's armour was a mixture of Alliance steel and Draenei craftsmanship. Her massive warhammer was forged out of a single crystal and bound to the haft by strips of the strange mineral known as Elementium. Her tabard showed her high regard with the magical city of Dalaran and a cloak reserved for the highly revered strangers in Teldrassil completed her look. An outlander – like the mercenaries – but a champion and equal member of the Alliance all the same.

She was now busy conversing with Luigi. Despite her age, Rhona was clearly responding well to the young man's flirtations. Whatever else he might be, Erich's second knew how to talk to women in a way they felt special, no matter if the women were humans his age – or beings multiple times his own age.

"So your friends thought my brother and I were demons?" Rhona asked with an exaggerated expression of horror. Flirting was always more fun if both sides played into it.

"Yes. Now seeing you my lady I cannot wait to go back and explain that you are not a demon. I would say that no demon could look so regal – or so downright beautiful." He replied while sweeping a strand of golden hair that had fallen in front of his eyes.

"Oh you are just saying that to make me feel nice." She giggled in response.

"No, no. You are gorgeous. Even someone like Lucrezzia Belladonna would be jealous of that flawless face you have." He replied without skipping a beat.

Rhona – and for that matter Caledra – had no idea who and how beautiful Lucrezzia Belladonna was but the comparison didn't need it. Rhona's beauty had been favourably compared to someone beautiful in a far away land, and that was enough.

Their conversation was interrupted by a bird call. Vereesa Windrunner snapped her fingers and then Caledra's mind went blank. Grabbing Luigi, she began dragging him off behind a pile of rocks, both for his safety and the success of the ambush. The boy glimmered and shone in his borrowed plate, and even a forsaken warrior with both of it's eyes missing would be able to see him. The few murmurs along the route of the ambush died down as a stillness settled over them all. A few minutes lay between them and the slaughter that was to follow. Caledra hoped that it was her companions doing the slaughtering.

There were a score of Gilneans hiding with them. Unlike the men from Alterac, the Gilneas preferred to wear little armour – mostly leather and chainmail – with smaller weapons like knives and pistols instead of pikes and battleaxes. The worgen were rumoured to be extremely powerful and extremely violent. Much like the Thalassians, they too had lost their homes to an undead menace. Only this time, instead of the rag tag remnants of Lordaeron and Prince Kael'thas to rally behind, they had the full might of the Alliance. The Horde had blighted Gilneas, and now the Gilneans would take the battle to them.

The humans – both men and women were considerably more feral looking than the people of the Eastern Kingdoms. Even though they were allies, Caledra could not help but feel a cold shiver running down her spine. Perhaps the Night Elven ritual to calm their souls and soothe their spirits had reached it's limits and the newly transformed worgen would succumb to the dark nature of their new selves.

Placing her ear to the ground, Caledra listened intently. After a few moments of relative silence, her sensitive hearing began to feel the vibrations. Hundreds of footsteps marching on the narrow trail towards them. The Horde force was approaching their positions. Listening to the pace of their march, they would be passing by the hiding spot in a few minutes. Reflexively, her hand went to her bow, gripping it tightly. Years of ranging had honed Caledra's senses to a supernatural level of sharpness. As she felt the vibrations, she started counting. Three to four hundred people perhaps. The heavy hoofbeats of the Tauren masked the light pitter patter of the Sin'dorei. The irregular footfalls of the shambling Forsaken brought terrifying memories from the fall of Quel'Thalas.

After another eternity contained in a few moments, the stillness of Dustwallow Marsh was shattered by the roar of gunfire. Shouts and alarms in orcish, Thalassian and Common filled the air for a split second, before being drowned in a roar from the Eagle Company. Lifting her head Caledra saw that the ambush had well and truly begun. The main force of Alterac humans was laying into the body of the Horde force. The sounds of gunfire were replaced slowly and steadily by the twang of elven bows and clash of steel. They had surprised the Horde force. Now the outcome of the ambush depended upon how quickly the Horde would be able to react.

Vereesa was in no mood to let the Horde force attempt an active attempt at fighting back. The Quel'dorei were busy targeting Horde officers that attempted to rally their forces. Caledra saw horde champion after champion go down as volleys of arrows were shot in their direction. One – a Sin'dorei magister – managed to block the ranger's arrows, only to be gunned down mercilessly as Morley ordered his gunners to unleash a hail of gunfire at her location.

Keeping an eye on Luigi so he wouldn't accidentally charge into battle and hurt himself, Caledra unslung her bow and began to shoot at any target she deemed viable. The confusion of the battle reminded her of hunting amani warbands. The Horde force, focused on the mass of humans engaging them from the front was unable to respond to the stealthy and methodical attacks of the Elven rangers. As she shot another one of her kind through the throat, Caledra paused for a moment to take a stock of the battle and reflect upon the plans of the youngest Windrunner sister.

Vereesa Windrunner had largely been overshadowed by her older sisters, but she was by no means a damsel in distress who knew little of war. While Erich's knowledge of proper battles might have been greater, the Ranger General of the Silver Covenant was a master of setting and executing ambushes. The panicked faces and the scattered response of the Horde force was proof enough that they had not expected an ambush. Erich had predicted the Horde's way of winning the siege of Northwatch, but it had been the youngest Windrunner sister who had turned their trump card into a death trap.

As the battle continued, the Alliance forces finally began to lose their advantage of surprise. The Horde might have been surprised by the ferocity of the Alliance attack and dismayed by the losses amongst their officers, but they slowly began to rally. A small group of Orc and Tauren shamans began to chant, bolstering their strength with spells and magic. The stamina of the survivors began to recover at a supernatural pace, their blows becoming stronger and faster, even as the humans tired. Erich might have trained the men of Alterac well, but the lack of wizards or spellcasters was going to take their toll in more spread out battles. The half-elf was freakishly strong, but she could not be everywhere.

Even so, the small cohort of horde spellcasters was not the biggest problem, it was the elves and the Tauren. Standing over the ranks of the humans that were opposing them, the Tauren swung their totems and halberds in a wide arc, smashing or cleaving through any person unfortunate to get in their way. Well armoured and strong as ogres, they were able to break through the trap and rally out of bow range. Most of the Horde forces attempted to follow them but the Eagle Company managed to cut them off. Even as the main battle was turning into a victory, the Horde was preparing to salvage what remained of their forces.

Alone, the Tauren might not have posed much of a threat. The firepower commanded by Vereesa would have been enough to eventually gun them down. A cohort of Blood Knights, led by a captain on a warhorse had also broken through the ambush. Heavily armoured with magical plate, they had easily turned aside the pikes and axes of the Alteraci force and cut a bloody path alongside the Tauren. Now they were holding their own with a rough shield wall, facing towards the bulk of the Ranger General's forces. A few brave humans had tried to break through their position and had been swiftly killed for their courage. Caledra, Luigi, and the small mass of worgen were now behind this remnant of the Horde force.

Luigi had also noticed this small sliver of fortune. Eager to earn his place in his mentor's company, the young man was eager to spill blood with his blade. He tugged at Caledra and pointed towards them. "Those Gorebulls haven't noticed us. We can attack them in the rear and break their shieldwall." It took a moment for Caledra to reply to him in his native tongue.

"No, they can still swing around and kill us if we attack them right now. It is better to let them come to grips with the bulk of our forces so we can mow them down." She replied. The boy was likely to get himself killed. No matter how regal and mighty he looked in Alliance armour, he was not going to be a match for the new elite of the Blood elven armies. Erich would not forgive her if something were to happen to his protégé.

In response to her protest, Luigi simply ignored her and looked at the Gilneans. The afflicted humans were eager enough for combat, and some of them had a feral glint in their eyes that Caledra felt uncomfortable with. Rhona had been looking at them while they had been talking to each other in his native tongue, and cracked her knuckles with impatience.

"So good people. Do we wait and let others take the glory that is ours by right?" Luigi stood up and pointed at the Horde shield wall with his sword. The wind blowing in his hair and and the alliance armour added to his charm. Until then Caledra had never realised how similar he looked and felt to the prodigal Prince of Lordaeron in his prime. If the youth had been holding a warhammer instead of a sword and shield, he would perhaps even have fooled King Terenas.

He continued. "Over there is a foe that thinks us cowed and defeated. They think that we will hide behind the walls of Northwatch while they surround us and cut us down. You saw how gladly they marched, smug and satisfied in their inevitable victory. Look how they cower now as they realise that they do not fight debased and docile cattle, but proud men and women fighting for their honour! See how they stand now, the hunters become the hunted. Our brothers and sisters have left us the honour of cutting off the head of this odious snake. I go now to earn my place amongst the exalted heroes and champions of my homeland, facing a foe determined to destroy us. Any person who comes with me shall be my brother in battle. And if we meet our makers on this, we do so knowing that we have fought with the honour and glory that is our right as warriors."

Several men and women cheered, Rhona amongst the loudest. Caledra was taken aback. The boy was good at flirting, but translating that into a rousing speech during battle was something entirely. He had been born to lead, a prince in all but name.

The Gilneans began to transform. Limbs lengthened, the faces changed from human to lupine and hands and feet turned into claws. The baggy clothes held the strain well and instead of being naked druid like transformation, they turned into wolf-men. The worgen had the ferocity of wolves, the intelligence of humans and the strength of the ancient druids of Kalimdor. Much like the High Elves, the Gilneans had lost their homes to the undead. Only in their case they had lost it to the Horde and the war against them was still being fought. With bloodcurdling howls that echoed through the hills, they began to charge at the Sin'dorei and Tauren who tried to make a desperate last stand.

Encouraged by the worgen attack from the rear, the Alteraci and the rangers began to fight with a renewed vigour. The spell bolstered orc line was now no match for the larger human force that was assailing them from multiple sides without giving them a moment's respite. Over the melee, the rangers of the Silver Covenant were busy picking off important targets like the channelling spellcasters.

The real fight now was between the Gilneans and the Horde rearguard, and it was one the latter were by and large unprepared for. The speed of the Worgen took the hastily assembled shield wall by surprise, with the raw strength of the worgen charge tossing away several elves that had not been braced. The strength of the Tauren was closely matched by the Worgen as well, but the Horde forces had been fighting desperately, while the Gilneans were fresh and eager.

Shouts and screams in Thalassian rang out as elf after elf was cut down savagely by the claws of the worgen. For a heartrending moment, Caledra was reminded of the scourge invasion of Quel'thalas. The people fighting against her were her own kin. There might still be a way to stop this senseless slaughter. Then the moment passed as she saw Luigi and Rhona run past her. Kin they might be, but the the Sin'dorei had chosen to walk a different path when they had allied with the same foes that had burned down the outer forests of Quel'Thalas in during the second war. They would show no such mercy to her. It was better to harden her heart and get it over with.

Even as her mind parsed the sundered roads that the High Elves had taken, her body acted on it's own. Arrow after arrow was aimed at the weak points in the tauren armour, hitting neck, elbow, eye socket or knee. Decades of guerilla warfare had taught Caledra not to tarry too long while picking a target. Her goal now was to keep Luigi alive as the Horde desperately tried to kill as many Alliance forces as they could in a final act of despair. For all her preference to an urban lifestyle, Caledra's skill with the bow had not diminished, and dead and dying Horde soldiers lay dead at Luigi and Rhona's feet as they finally came to grips with the enemy.

Untested and eager he might be, but Luigi's instincts were remarkably good. The first foe he fought was a squire to one of the blood knights. A young elf, perhaps a hundred years old had picked him to be an easy target in contrast to the ravening worgen and the Draenei woman who towered over him. Just like Caledra had feared, Luigi met the challenge head on, nearly spitting himself over the squire's sword. Thankfully, at the last moment, the squire lost her nerve and turned away the point of her blade and was rewarded with Luigi's entire mass running into her shield first. The impromptu shield bash dazed the squire, and Luigi defeated her by hitting the back of her head with his pommel.

Then he was hopping on to the next one. His next opponent was an older elf – a fully fledged Blood Knight. He came at Luigi aggressively, with his shield in front and channelling a spell with holy powers. This time Luigi was nimble enough to dodge the overhand blow, and he knew how to counter with his sword. A few exploratory thrusts put the Blood Knight on the back foot, and angered at being kept in check by a human, he put all his might into an all out attack to split Luigi in two from chest to groin. Caledra's heart stopped for a moment as she saw the young man freeze as the Blood Knight shortened the distance between them. His nerves had doubtless failed him, and he would die even if Caledra hit the Sin'dorei with her arrows. Then she noticed Luigi's feet. He had braced himself for the headlong charge, and was baiting the knight into making a mistake. At the last moment, he swivelled on the balls of his feet, dodging the blow entirely. Quick as lightning, his sword arm flashed and the Blood Knight fell down, his head rolling away limply.

Caledra let down her guard as she saw that Luigi was joined by Rhona. The Draenei Paladin was more than capable of holding her own against a squad of blood elves. She was part of the champions who had taken down Deathwing, and the fact that she was fighting on alongside them helped push the odds in their favour. Light erupted from the Paladin's body as she lay into the blood knights shouting something in her native tongue. The Blood Knights responded by using similar spells but the difference of power between them was more than enough for her to defeat them with ease. Luigi stayed behind her, making sure that she was not hit from behind or otherwise overpowered, dancing away from any foe he could not defeat and keeping out of harm's way until Rhona or Caledra could take care of the foe for him.

Eventually the morale of the blood elves began to crumble as the last Tauren died. The blood Knights had all fought to the bitter end, taking the lives of several worgen and humans even as their hope of retreating had finally been extinguished. One of the last dying Blood Knights ordered them to surrender, and they followed his final command. The Orcs had asked for no quarter and had been offered none.

Of the six hundred or so Horde soldiers that had attempted to take Northwatch's rear gate by storm, fifty were able to walk, and a similar number were wounded and captured. Under Vereesa's orders, the dead were left where they lay, and the now diminished Eagle Company, Gilnean worgen and the mercifully unharmed Silver Covenant rangers now began the march back towards Northwatch, to reinforce the battle and carry the tidings of victory. Their plan had been a success. The Horde had no idea that their ploy to win the siege by trickery had been foiled. The initiative, once more had swung in the Alliance – and Erich's favour.

As the high of the battle wore off, Caledra wondered if Erich was doing well. A vision of him lying in a pool of his own blood in the ruins of Northwatch as his company banner was set alight by fel fire struck her with the force of charging hawkstrider. She stopped for a moment wondering if it was a premonition, or something her tired mind had made up as she felt sick after the battle. After all, she had killed fellow elves. For the vast majority of their lives, they had lived peacefully in Quel'thalas, but the events of the last thirty years had set events in motion so explosive that they were now gladly killing each other. By rights they should be rebuilding Quel'thalas together under the protection of the Alliance.

Then there was the matter with Erich. It surprised Caledra to think that an errant thought of her tired mind could affect her in that manner. In retrospect, he had been on her mind for an inordinate amount. His babbling discussion about tactics and strategy, and his attempts to lighten the mood by making drunken insinuations were unexpectedly endearing Erich had a charm about him that made him larger than life, almost like a character from the cheap romance novels that were popular among middle aged women. Yet behind all the cheap velvet, the man was as sharp and cold as steel. Caledra had seen him plan the defence of Pyrewood, battling wits and strategems with Sylvanas Windrunner herself. His easy confidence and implicit trust in those he fought alongside had rubbed off on her during all the time they had spent together, and it did not feel strange that Caledra had come around to care for Erich. It was perhaps the same feelings that motivated Erich's men to fight for him, where most others would have fled – as the routed Alliance army very nearly did at Silverpine – or perhaps it was something more.

It would have to wait, mused Caledra as the walls of Northwatch came into sight, preceded by the sound of cannon fire. There was a battle to be fought. She would come to terms with her feelings when the Horde had been defeated.

* * *

Phillip ran his hand over his bald scalp. If this was the monastery, his superiors would have found no fault with his personal grooming. Phillip always took the minor duties expected from lay brothers very seriously. Even now he could recite passages from the _Deus Sigmar_ that linked his daily struggle with those of the Founder of the Empire and it's patron God. Under his breath he began reciting the story of Sigmar fighting the orc invaders at Blackfire Pass. When he closed his eyes, he was transported through time and space to the blessed moment in history where the Empire had been forged with Ghal Maraz on an Orcish Anvil. He licked his lips in excitement as the taste of the volcanic sulphur lay on his tongue. If he had opened his eyes and seen himself in that blessed presence and on that holy ground, he would not be surprised, such was his devotion in Sigmar.

As it happened, he was not at Blackfire Pass, but standing on a wall in a foreign land. Dawn was still some time off, but even by the light of the watchfires in the besieger's camp, he could see the monstrous shapes of the Siege towers. A hundred or so screaming orcs would be attacking from the each of the towers, eager to spill the blood of men. Fighting them alongside a strange tribe of men as Sigmar did in ages past sent a shiver of excitement down his spine. He had laboured long and tirelessly, clinging on to his faith in a dogged manner even when it had all but abandoned him. His rebirth in the Dustwallow Marsh had been a sign that he had been pure. He was amongst the righteous and the strong. The Gods may test him time and time again, but his faith had been rewarded. Brother Phillip's faith would Endure long after his body lay buried in the ground.

"I hope you are not too busy outlander." The voice raised the hairs on the back of Phillip's neck. It's accent reminded him of his father's Kislevite clients, but there was the hint of an echo in the voice, reminding him that the speaker was not human. Involuntarily, Phillip's hand gripped the haft of his warhammer as he turned to face the creature.

As far as inhuman creatures went, the Draenei were impressive. Rajash stood head and shoulders above Phillip. His face wide and broad was perfectly – too perfectly for human features – proportioned with a jawline and nose that would have been fit on a king's statue. The blue skin, glowing eyes and protruding horns destroyed any semblance of humanity the creature had. The fur and skins he wore along with the crystalline maces on his hip gave the appearance of a shaman. Erich had told him not to start fights with these inhuman creatures, for they were far away from home. It was only Phillip's respect for the man that stopped him from bashing the Draenei's statuesque face in with his warhammer.

"I am busy. What do you want?" Phillip grudgingly replied. The faster Rajash was done with him, the faster he would be left to his meditations.

Infuriatingly, the Draenei did not speak his piece and leave Phillip, but rather walked closer to him. Phillip resisted the urge to grab his warhammer and put a respectable distance between the two of them through force, remaining content with chenching his fists.

"You might not have heard, but I have been chosen to support the Scarlet company on the walls. Captain Miller has ordered that the two of us stand together. I understand that you do not like me, my sister or my kind but we are allies against the Horde." He answered. Phillip cursed the man internally. The Light worshipper was doubtless angry that Phillip had saved the souls of his compatriots from such a weak deity. It was no secret the men of the Old World distrusted "allies" such as the Draenei. Erich had doubtless grown softer when he had mingled with the men of the Southern Realms. Weak willed men were susceptible to chaos. It had been to his lasting disgust that even the sturdy Middenlanders had come to terms with these Draenei.

"Keep your distance from me then. My hammer makes no distinction between Orc skulls and demon flesh." He shot back. Rajash flinched as he heard the comparison. Not giving him a chance, Phillip pressed his advantage. "You seem to think us all foolish, but the people of the Eastern Kingdoms have something else to say about your kind. Did your kind not lead this world to the brink of ruin a decade ago?"

The expression of rage on the Draenei's face was as clear as the sun that would soon be rising. What the Scarlets and Gilneans had said was true. Then Rajash composed himself and his face retreated into a mask-like visage, unscrutable to Phillip. When he spoke, there was an edge in his voice much different from his generally friendly demeanour.

" Your newfound lackeys know little of demonkind. What do your kind know of being hunted to the brink of extinction by your own blood? The lust for power corrupts all mortal life, even those as powerful and noble as our ancestors on Argus. For twenty five thousand years we have fought the long war against a foe that seeks to devour life and burn all of creation to ash. Even after the near extinction of our kind against the Horde we have persevered when others more pleasing to your eyes have rolled over and died."

Even as he spoke, the wall rumbled and a clod of earth began to take shape before Phillip's eyes. Towers and cities of marvellous design were formed before his eyes on a large globe, before crumbling to ashes in flame. Beings similar in look to the Draenei but with infinitely crueller expressions and massive horns hunted down the people they had once called family. It was the uprising of a Chaos cult, but on the scale of a world. Phillip's retorts melted away as he felt pangs of sympathy for Rajash and his kind.

"We were all called Eredar once and we built wonders on Argus. Now it is a realm of Demons – most of which are our kin. In the vastness of the Great Dark Beyond, there is nothing so horrifying as seeing brother sacrificing brother to gain a sliver more of power. The hatred we have for the minions of the Burning Legion cannot be compared to whatever hatred you may have of us, outlander. We are in this fight together, whether you may like it or not. Once we go our separate ways, I will stay away from you to the best of my ability." His voice carried a tone of genuine sadness, and Phillip felt ill at ease as the tingling sensation of guilt crept up his spine.

By all rights, what the cult of Sigmar had taught Phillip told him to be wary of inhuman creatures, but his newly awakened senses could not detect an iota of untruth in what Rajash said. He knew all too well how power corrupted people with the strongest wills, as more than one Grand Theogonist had fallen to the worship of the Ruinous Powers. Maybe it was the same for these Draenei.

"How did your people fall to worship of Demons, and how did you end up here?" He asked after a while.

The Draenei's expression tightened. "At the height of our power on Argus, we were ruled by the three wisest of our kind. Archimonde, Kil'Jaeden and Velen. A vison came upon them, the voice of a Titan – beings that made worlds according to the grand order in the cosmos. He promised our kind power unending – all we would have to do was to serve him."

Phillip nodded. The promise of power was seductive for all creatures.

"Velen felt the darkness in the Titan's presence and his heart grew heavier as he realised what the Titan's bargain would result. Our works might have become greater, but they would lose the soul of the Eredar. And so it came to pass."

His voice quivered as he continued. "Brother fought against brother, and the faithful led by Velen were killed without mercy. Then at our darkest hour, he received another vision. The embodiment of the Light, the Na'aru came to rescue us. We departed on their ships and sailed the void between the stars, keeping out of reach of the Burning Legion and harrying them where ever we could. Even now the Prophet Velen looks for a way to return to Argus, so that we may retake it and the banners of the Draenei hang from the halls of our forefather." He turned around. "That one knows our pain." Rajash pointed at a figure inside the walls.

Phillip turned to look. Even in greying skies he could make out Erich walking. The man's gait and posture were unmistakable. Despite all his seeming hate for members of his class, he had all their habits. He was twirling his sword in his hand while looking eastward, waiting for the sun to come up. The battle had shot everyone's nerves up. Sleep was hard.

"What do you mean?"

Rajash looked at Phillip gravely. "I am a shaman. The spirits tell me much about you, Reiklander."

Phillip took a step back. Allies or not Rajash spoke to the dead. That was uncomfortably close to Necromancy.

"Of course it doesn't take the spirits to feel the aura you outlanders have around you. The results of your action cling to your band of mercenaries. Death has eaten well from your comrades."

"We are mercenaries. Bringing death for coin is what we do."

"And yet not all of you are at ease with what must be done." He replied flippantly craning his neck towards Erich.

The sky had lightened by then and the sun began to rise up over the sea. A gleam of sunshine illuminated the battlefield. As if a signal had been given, the catapults and machinery of the Horde sprang to life. The siege towers began trundling forward and the enemy camp began disgorging the army that would be assaulting Northwatch.

But the first salvo fired by the Horde was from their Navy. The sound of cannonfire came from a westward direction, and Phillip turned to see the area around the port being bombarded by the bigger ships of the Horde. He hoped that Hans and his men would be safe. It would be cruel for a follower of Ulric to be pulverised by artillery.

The defenders were running up the wall. Shaken out of their slumber by the noise of the cannonfire, they were scared but determined enough. There had been plenty of weapons and armour left in the Fortress for them to wear. Down in the courtyard men and women were waking up and beginning to scatter, encouraged by both Erich and Miller. The catapults and siege weapons then opened fire and the sky was filled with burning rocks and pitch being lobbed at the defenders. The wall shook and blackened as the pitch struck it. The screams of burning men was disconcerting to hear as Phillip saw men and women desperately flailing around as their tents caught fire.

Rajash summoned what seemed like a tidal wave to quench the fires but it was too late for the people that had been doused in burning oil. They had died a excruciating death. The smell of burning flesh made the bile rise in Phillip's throat. He prayed to Sigmar that he not be killed by some devilish contraption like this. A clean death while he was covered in orc blood would be as honourable as being anointed with scented oils in a chapel.

The siege towers continued to roll forward, supported by what seemed like a wave of warriors advancing in a rough order without much though to their formations. A hundred or so carried what seemed like crossbows and firearms to cover their advance while the rest were armed with axes, shields, hammers and the like. The strongest – the darker orcs – were doubtless in the tower, eager to first spill human blood.

As the towers trundled forward Phillip began to make out the banners and the paraphernalia on them. Darkened wood roughly hewn into a superstructure supported by iron or steel made up the body of the towers. The banners of the horde – a deceptively simple emblem had by now become familiar to the mercenaries. Other banners, including a red and gold version of the Elven one, and the shattered mask of the Forsaken also fluttered wildly in the breeze. The enemies of humanity were working together to bring about it's defeat – just had the Everchosen of Chaos had. The grim determination of mankind to persevere had triumphed against the hosts of Chaos. Now it was being tested – a lesser test perhaps – in another far away land.

He gripped his warhammer tightly and ducked behind the crenellations as everyone else around him did the same. After a split moment the skirmishing line of Horde gunners – orcs, elves and undead alike stopped and began to shoot at them. The fusillade was furious, but mercifully short. One or two poor souls who attempted to peek at the approaching towers were shot for their attempts but otherwise no one was injured. Their task was to suppress the defenders on the wall so that all the first wave of attackers would find them cowering from the ranged firepower.

Then there was a blast of cannonfire from the citadel itself. The cannon at the top of the tower had a clear view of the lower walls of Northwatch. The siege towers trundling forward were easy targets for it. Cannonball after cannonball hurtled towards the approaching siege towers, causing everyone on the wall to duck reflexively. The next few minutes were some of the most haranguing in a battle. His view was limited to the sky above and the people around him. Occasionally a cannonball would hurtle through the dawning sky.

An almighty racket broke this trance. Unconsciously, he got up to take a look and was rewarded with the sight of one of the Horde's towers crumbling. Solitary orcs that had lost their balance were falling down the length of the tower, while the infantry supporting the siege tower stopped and scattered. With a shout and cheer, the men of the Scarlet Company picked up their guns and began to fire on the stunned Horde force. Scores of orcs were mown down as they attempted to pull their fellows from the wreckage of the siege tower. A small portion of Phillip's mind thought that it was odd. Orcs were never so organised as to drag their dead and injured away from the fighting. This new land was similar to the old world in so many way, and utterly alien in so many others.

The destruction of the Siege Tower had thrown confusion into the Horde's ranks. There were only so many places to dock them and the one destroyed meant that holding the walls had turned from being suicidal into a merely a gruelling fight until they held the wall, or were pushed off. Maybe, just maybe this plan would work without all of them dying.

All too soon, the first tower managed to reach the line the wall. Phillip gripped his hammer tightly until his knuckles turned white. The moment of truth had arrived. His faith had not wavered through years in the wilderness, and he had been vindicated. Now it was up to his body, filled with a sliver of divine strength to live up to the faith that had nurtured him. The tower's door open and began to disgorge a dozen or so armoured orcs. All his doubt had vanished. Sigmar had placed him here to do fight Orcs, and so he would.

The first Orc was a dark brown colour. Phillip noted that it was unusual shade for greenskins, but then nothing in this strange land was anything like the Old World. He Swung his warhammer in a high arc over his head, unleashing the full power of his muscles and struck the Orc on the head. The creature went down, armour and all and did not get back up. This was a dangerous move that would have drained a lot of his stamina. But the strength Sigmar had given him now was beyond the power of mortal man. Even the hammer began to glow with a soft golden light as the last remaining slivers of doubt faded away and the battle lust took over. He barely felt any strain in his body as he began to move towards the rapidly pouring ranks of Orcs and began to lay into them. This was glorious.

A mighty power he might wield, but his instinct had been sharpened by years of exhaustive training and combat in a no holds barred melee. His armour – dwarf forged – meant that he did not have to care about any attack aimed at his chest, needing only to protect his head against any orc foolish enough to aim for such a small target. Smaller jabs and strokes would serve him just as well in the crush of the melee. The orcs had disgorged a large number of their kind on the walls and several unfortunate Scarlets had been thrown off the wall into the courtyard below.

Beside him, Rajash was busy casting spells. Even though they were temporary allies, Phillip found his usage of magic somewhat horrifying. He had no idea how magic worked and had never bothered to find out. Watching the hulking shape of the Draenei towering over the Orcs while scorching them with lighting was entertaining spectacle however. Even that was not the limit to the abilities of the Draenei. Phillip found that any minor scratch he took was healed almost instantly with a splash of water that seemed to materialize out of the thin air. Was this some Draeneic version of the Lore of Life?

Despite their best efforts, the number of the greenskins pouring in began to take a toll on the defenders.A man would stab a greenskin once or twice before another one would bury an axe in his body. Several poor fools lost their footing and fell off the wall to their deaths, with the sickening splats heard above the din of the battle. Then the second tower docked somewhere behind them and began to disgorge it's loathsome complement of soldiers. Men – long dead and rotting – shambled out with jagged blades and shields in hand. Despite of the weak appearance, these undead were far more capable of combat than the ones they had faced in the Eastern Kingdoms. The soldiers facing this new threat were pushed back into the tower and anyone that dared to break ranks and flee was cut down mercilessly.

Phillip realized the grave danger they were in. If the men behind them were to break and flee, they soldiers fighting the Orcs would be trapped in a tide of the undead. He swung around, warhammer gripped tightly and charged into the Forsaken ranks intent on clearing a path for them even if it cost him his life. As he began to chant from the Deus Sigmar, his tired body moved with a renewed speed that would have perplexed even the most devout. What seemed like flash of light surrounded his body and the soft sounds of musical chimes began to ring in his mind, slowly forming into words.

" _The sun sets over the mountains grey.  
As the dead turn upon their living prey.  
The faithful huddledbehind the walls  
And broach the last mead casks in their halls._

 _The End of the World had come at last.  
Nagash's Wrath had come to pass.  
The tombs and barrows lie empty across the lands.  
As the living look to their banners and their warbands._

 _'Oh Emperor, oh King of Kings  
Doom hath come. formed of Unholy things'_

 _The men cry out in terror and fear.  
The din of dead drums rining in every ear._

 _'This is the End Times as has been foretold.  
If only we had stayed in our clan hold.'  
The sky turns grey from inky black._

 _As the carrion birds start to caw and clack._

 _Upon the throne a does a lone man sit.  
Wearing a troubled crown and furrows knit.  
His hand caresses the Hammer of Dwarfen Kings.  
And around him stand his guard in Mailed Rings._

 _He raises his voice above the din in the hall.  
'If this be the End of the World, then together shall we fall'  
Every face turns to gaze at the Emperor's mighty girth.  
His eyes of blue and green sparkling with joy and mirth._

 _'Together we forged this Empire with our sweat and steel.  
If the world is to end tomorrow, would we not stand heel to heel?  
Oh my brave warriors and proud princes of great renown.  
Believe in the strength of your arms and our glory shall be yet known.'_

 _For the gods do not abandon us even in our darkest hour.  
Soon Nagash the Necromancer shall feel Ghal Maraz in all it's Power.  
In a world that has wanted us dead since we were born._

 _We have built something great even as the world heaps upon us scorn._

 _When this day is past and the dead return to their rest.  
We shall remember this moment in our songs and jest.  
For what are the undead but pale shadows of life.  
Our spirit will not waver as we march under drum and fife._

 _This Necromancer from the far lands of the South thinks us all but beaten.  
Tomorrow he thinks he shall have raised our bones and our world have eatern.  
But he forgets one thing that we shall make him remember._

 _This is a company of heroes, every last member._

 _With this hand I banished the Demons atop Ulric's flame.  
And with this hand shall I strike down Nagash-life's bane.  
Man lives for a mere moment by the reckoning of one so long dead.  
But a moment shall it take to cave his skull and send flying his head.'_

 _'Oh Emperor, oh Lord of the Unberogen_

 _What were to happen to your Empire if you were to fall to the Necromancer's ken?  
You have taken no wife and sired no child  
Without you we would run wild!'_

 _Sigmar stands up and raises his hammer_

 _'Hear me well, Men of the Empire for I will not stammer.  
The one that I loved has long died to pay for her brother's pride.  
I swore upon her grave, I shall take no other bride._

 _`From the mountains grey to the mountains black  
This land that we have fought for back to each other's back.  
Is your land far more than it is mine.  
When I am gone chose the next among your own kind._

 _For we are men of the Empire, brave and true_

 _The bonds we have formed in war shall be our glue.  
Choose the best amongst you to lead in my stead.  
We are too noble to have only my blood at the head._

 _For this is a land of heroes that have bled.  
To keep the weakest amongst us well fed.  
Orcs we have fought and goblins too._

 _Of the beastfolk and norsemen we have defeated quite a few.'_

 _The sun rises over the mountains of the World's Edge  
Even the gods from their celestial halls turn to hear Sigmar's pledge._

 _The Men of the Empire shout with joy and wonder.  
As Sigmar rides to battle, with his voice of Thunder._

Phillip wept as Sigmar's sacrifice resonated with the very core of his being. This was no mere apocryphal story of the _Deus Sigmar._ A divine voice had answered a question that had puzzled so many in his youth. He finally understood the gravity of the often used phrase, 'Children of Sigmar.' The men of the Empire were all His children. He had taken no wife or sired no child because the Empire belonged to no Him, but to all it's people. The last ruler of the Unberogen had offered his own bloodline so that others may have ruled as _His_ children – whether they be Reiklanders, Middenlanders or Sollanders – saw fit. In Sigmar's eyes, they were all his blood, for they shed it in the defense of the dream that he had. In a world full of horrors and dangers, there would still be a shining light of humanity as long as they were willing to keep fighting. A sigh escaped from his lips as Brother Phillip comprehended the mystery of Sigmar's Blood.

He opened his eyes to fight the Undead, as the sound of the musical chimes faded away from his mind. While in this divine trance Phillip felt that he had traveled through time and space to see the mysteries of Sigmar, heedless of the danger to his earthly body. Now with a clarity that was doubtless a gift from Sigmar himself, he saw the Forsaken for what they were and what they had been.

 _They had been proud men and women once._ A voice spoke in his mind, similar to the divine chiming that he had heard as he experienced his Vision. _Look upon them, child of Sigmar. They loved Lordaeron as much you love the Empire. When Death came to claim them, they fought as valiantly as Sigmar and his companions in ages past._ Phillip understood what the voice meant. There was no Sigmar on Azeroth to lead them against the Dead.

He could now see their tortured souls forcibly sewn back into their bodies by dark magics – like a little girl sews back her rag doll – in a grotesque mockery of the lives they once had. He wept as he saw the fate ofthe Empire if Sigmar had failed, or if the Grand Theogonist had not sacrificed himself to defeat Vlad von Carstein. He might not know the chants of Morr, but he now understood what Sigmar had asked of him. He had been brought here to release the souls of the dead of Lordaeron from their shackles of Undeath. In the dark wilderness of the Old World he had prayed to Sigmar to give him purpose, and that purpose had now been made clear to him.

'Who are you messenger?' He asked the voice in his head, and the chimes rose higher as though the being was laughing with sheer delight. _I am Xe'ra, first amongst the Na'aru. Your gods have sent you here for a purpose, child of Sigmar. Seek out the Exodar and meet with the Prophet Velen, and all shall be revealed in time._

As the vestiges of the presence retreated from his mind, Phillip exhaled slowly. After hearing Xe'ra's voice, the world sounded dull and harsh in contrast. Rajash had mentioned the Prophet Velen as the saviour of his people. If Sigmar had ordained him to come here, then he would wage war alongside the Draenei until His purpose was made clear. Phillip now looked at the forsaken with pity in his eyes. These abominations were killing their own countrymen even now. It was his duty to relieve them of their tortured existence.

With another hymn from the _Deus Sigmar_ upon his lips, Brother Phillip – warrior priest of Sigmar set upon the task given to him, warhammer aglow with the force of his resolve.

* * *

 _ **A/N Well, I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and is not planning on drunk driving on New Years. I originally planned on writing the battle in one big chapter but it got too unwieldy even for my meandering prose so I decided to split it into two parts. I will get to writing the next part soonish.**_

 _ **Solarblaster, Thank you.**_

 ** _Thehappyvampire, all the addiction problems the blood elves had got resolved in TBC itself. As far as the lore goes, they are just High elves with a different eye colour from minor fel exposure. Which is why Ion Hazzikostas' infuriating comment about High Elves being playable - on the horde - is technically correct even though it smugly sidesteps the question the Warcraft High Elf fanbase has regarding their playability.  
Regarding Warcraft's Diversity - it is going to be quite a surprise if they see Pandaren. Imagine fat non chaotic beastmen that live in harmony with their feelings and drink beer and eat good food all day. It will be quite the treat to have the entire worldview of the Old Worlders shatter away._**

 ** _Miko 56, Certainly looks the part. But that is more about him being a pretty norscan dude wearing Alliance Plate that fits him._**

 ** _Blinded in a Bolthole, Well technically Erich has faced Sylvanas before and won with basically an overcharged mage on his side, defensive positions and the plague weapons of the Forsaken being taken out of commission by the Gilnean Liberation Front. Sylvanas will do her homework before fighting him again, especially if she finds out she killed the wrong person in Strahnbrad.  
Also the Blood elves pretty much all follow the Light at this point and the Phoenix is more of a national emblem on their banners instead of having religious connotations that they have for the Asur. Also the blood elves will never follow a half elf since they are too proud for stuff like that._**

 ** _Guest, Sorry, I already put the numbers in the story. The problem isn't with the Tauren themselves. The Old Worlders would just note that there are some beastmen among the Orcs. Tauren society as a whole is going to be flabbergasting to them as the Tauren are pretty much the nicest race in WoW, on par with the Pandaren._**

 ** _Mcajabberwocky, The Ulricans are working alongside the Gilneans. Now I am not gonna tell if some of them are or are not Worgen but the surprise factor has worn off by now._**

 ** _The True Skull, The old world ended because GW wanted to sell Sigmarine figurines that were interchangable with their 40k lineup. GW is already prepping to sell even more stories in the old world now that they realise that the videogames popularity mean that a new audience is interested in their setting which they deleted for copywritten overly busy models. Up until then the warhammer world worked together when there was a big threat and then go back to their internal squabbling much like how warcraft was in Vanilla. Even the end of the world is a cartoony last minute twist when Mannfred stabs Gelt and the world dies so that Sigmar can finally make his trademark world and GW can shove terms like Duardin Fyreslayers._**

 ** _Deadliestfan, Please write a story about the Horde/Alliance invading Ulthuan and decimating the warhammer world, and I will read and enjoy reading it. You raise several good points regarding weapons, tactics and how they work on Azeroth. I will incorporate them into my story as I continue writing it. I suspect you will quite like the next chapter. Regarding the details about how weapons work, the game and the novels are incredibly incoherent about how it is supposed to work. A lot of fast loading weapons in warcraft seem to be based on gameplay taking place over functions, like a player controlled siege weapon destroyin entire encampments or armies. Warcraft suffers from a very comic book version of storytelling where everything leads to the next centerfold epic moment in lieu of setting consistency. So we have Legion where the entire universe consuming legion is defeated by a bunch of elves with bat wings 1 ufo that almost gets shot down and a cool scene with planet stabbing that doesn't matter in a few weeks because that story has already been told. The Burning Legion that they had been setting up since WC3 has been completely destroyed in 1 patch cycle. Now the next big bad is the void to start chasing the carrot with all over again._**

 ** _Regarding the Battle for Lordaeron, I used the trailer version instead of the actual ingame mission because WoW itself doesn't have several core mechanics that make it feel like a large battle. For example objects largely have no concept of mass or weight with characters/NPCs capable of running through each other and flying itself being like a noclip cheat. The trailers which have a lot more effort put into them over a far larger period of time are supposed to show the setting works in a much more interesting way than game missions that often or not end up being bugged. One is a cinematic moment of the game with a lot of resources put into it by the storytelling team to show how the setting is supposed to work, while the latter is actual gameplay that is focused on making a fun scenario that has you running from point A to B doing quests in between.  
Also what do you mean by selective bias in Blizzard's writing?_**

 ** _Wom1, wait for the next chapter. You will find out about his Cannons._**

 ** _Januszym, thanks._**

 ** _Kelmoria, the only trump card Erich's men have over Northwatch's original garrison is that the High Elves have been patrolling the marsh and found out how Northwatch fell so rapidly in the first place._**

 ** _Axccel, you do realise that a large part of what makes warhammer elves so unique is their arrogance which is backed up by competence? A ton of humanity's thriving circumstances were as a result of the Elves and Dwarfs helping them throughout the ages. Whether it be Wood Elves saving Bretonnia or the High Elves teaching the Empire's humans to use magic without becoming tentacled monsters all the time, they have their impact on the world without even needing to show up all the time. Warcraft elves are nice and all but their personality is basically the same as humans but they are pretty and live a thousand times longer. You can divide the ages of the main elf characters by a factor of 10 and nothing much would change about their personalities. Then they show up to be sidekicks to the nearest human character like what happened to Tyrande in MoP. She has been fighting in forests for 10k years since the war of the ancients but Varian "Tactical Genius" Wrynn has to teach her how to fight. Personally I will take warhammer elves over warcraft ones any day of the week because they don't have to be handheld by a dev's self insert.  
To each his own, I guess. Being an arrogant SOB is central to a warhammer elf's identity._**

 ** _Ultor, I don't plan on killing Erich off anytime soon._**


	46. Chapter 46

**The Siege of Northwatch**

* * *

Dawn found the city of Stormwind in a sombre mood. Mathias could feel the aura of despair that had blanketed the city like a fog. When Deathwing had rampaged through the city there had been panic and fear – but this was something else. Even the seagulls were silent as they flew overhead and the light in the Lighthouse seemed to flicker and dim as it parted through the sea mist. The few reports that he had received from Southshore had told him all he needed to know. The City of Theramore – the Heart of the Alliance – was no more.

The mood on the boat was dark. It had taken far too long for King Perenolde to enter the Alliance. Some of the angrier men and women aboard were discussing a solution to the Alterac problem once the Horde had been crushed. Shaw made a mental note of the ringleaders. They would need to be dissuaded. Idle chatter if not curtailed would lead to action, and what the Alliance needed right now more than ever was unity. It was his job to ensure that unity from the shadows, while Varian Wrynn did the same in the light. Alterac might be an untrustworthy den of traitors and filled with Syndicate dogs, but as far as this war went they were firmly on the Alliance's side. He had seen to it.

When he got off the boat, Mathias was struck by how empty the Stormwind Harbour looked. It took him a few moments to realise that almost the entirety of the Navy had left the harbour. Even the 7th legion's own detached fleet had left port. There was no sound coming from the massive hangars constructed during the assault on Northrend. It could mean only one thing. The Skyfire had gone as well.

Mathias ran through the harbour and towards the nearest SI:7 safehouse. The man on duty there hastily saluted and went to keep a lookout on the street after opening a trap door to the basement. Mathias spent the next hour jogging through the sewers of Stormwind, crisscrossing routes and looking for hidden signs only the most clever operatives would know. Edwin Van Cleef might have turned a traitor but the he was the finest man to ever have been involved in the shadowy arts of espionage. All agents were taught to use their noses while navigating the sewers. An occasional crocolisk lying in the pools made to follow him but he was otherwise undisturbed. Suddenly a different – if somewhat more pleasant – smell wafted in telling Mathias that his destination was at hand. He lit a gnomish torch that gave off light but no heat and pressed a loose brick in the sewer wall.

A small passageway opened up with flickering torches lining the way. A gust of wind filled with the smell of cheeses brought Mathias to the first safehouse he had ever commissioned. Elling Trias was waiting for him with a light in his hand. The single eye he had sparkled with mirth as he asked, "How did you enjoy your vacation to the Mountains of Alterac? I take it the people were friendly."

Mathias simply nodded. "We will talk about this later. Where is the Stormwind fleet?"

Trias' smile disappeared. "Gone off to war at full speed. Listen there is much you need to know. Theramore - "

"Has been destroyed yes. I heard the rumours at Southshore. Too many and too specific to be just lies."

"That is old news. Lady Proudmoore came to Stormwind after the fall of Theramore. They say her hair has turned white. It would seem that the mercenaries in Alterac managed to defeat the occupying force and retaken Northwatch. The King is leading the entirety of the navy and the 7th Legion to relieve them right now."

"What? The Horde has a fleet of their own near their own waters. If the King doesn't smash them they could retreat to Bilgewater Harbour and refit for another battle!" Mathias was furious. He should have been here for this. At the time it made sense to personally infiltrate Perenolde's fledgeling court. The syndicate might still be working in the shadows and they were a cut above any SI:7 agent he could have dispatched. By all accounts the mission had been a success. People had been paid off and in time Alterac would drift into Stormwind's orbit. All that faded in the background as the High King of the Alliance had boarded a fleet to fight the Horde in their waters. The rebirth of Alterac at the hands of foreign mercenaries paid with Alliance gold had warranted closer inspection but now he was paying for his curiosity.

By the time he had entered his office in the at the headquarters, Mathias Shaw was in a dark mood. Most of the cards he had been dealt were terrible. There was only one thing left to do. He sat down and began to write letters to an old professional rival. SI:7 was done interfering in Alterac for the duration of this war. He only hoped that Ravenholdt would keep the newly reborn nation in check. In his mind Mathias began to look at several worst case scenarios and draw up plans for each and every one. Van Cleef had taught him to be thorough, and he would do his old mentor proud. Wben this war was over Stormwind would grow greater than the dead leader of the Defias Brotherhood had ever thought possible.

* * *

It had never occurred to Hans that a beach could ever be so uninviting. The smell of marsh, desert rock and brine combined to make his head throb. All his drinking was catching up to him. Even if there hadn't been an army out for their heads he would have hated this place. The Gilneans called this place the Barrens, and he could see why. This was almost as alien to the rolling hills and meadows of Tilea as Blackfire Pass.

The gods in their infinite game had placed him and his men here, on a marshy beach and in the middle of a siege. That fact alone elicited another groan from him. He could see the red sails fluttering off the coast. It was not quite dawn yet, but the brilliant colours of magical spells, lights from the ships and the grey light of a sun beyond the horizon told him well enough of the force arrayed against them.

It would be a cold comfort if he were to die out here even if the larger battle was won. Such was the life of a mercenary. Morr was a constant companion, and no matter how many skulls he put on his armour, death had the sting that unnerved even the most seasoned warrior. Perhaps it was for the best that they would not be in the thick of things at the start. That dubious honour went to the Gilneans, who stood on the walls and the harbour entrance.

Lorna Crowley had assigned Hans and his command to guard the witch who called herself Dana. He knew she was supposedly powerful sorceress and a could cast ice magic, the same as the white haired Countess of Theramore. He deeply distrusted magic, and the Kislevite style of magic even less. It was something best left to elves, and the Eldest Race did not ingratiate a love for magic amongst their allies.

Like all wizards Hans had seen so far, Dana had an eccentric taste in clothes. Her dress would have made a whore blush from shame. It was made from a furred material that was doubtless warm, but the way it left her shoulders bare and exposed a generous amount of her breasts and belly turned it into a titillating mockery of anything practical. He doubted if even the Countess of Nuln had ever worn something so risque as the women of this land wore.

His men had similar opinions. For her part, Dana was doing an excellent job of ignoring them, focusing instead on forming icicles with her staff. It seemed that she was largely uninterested in the battle itself. It either boded well or ill for them. Perhaps she was a hardened veteran who cared little about trifles on the eve of battle, or perhaps she was just in shock. Hans had no inclination to understand her psyche. As long as they protected her, she would reap a heavy toll on the enemy attacking the docks. It was enough. If his boys were in the back when Gilneans did the dying, it suited him just fine.

In what seemed like an eternity, the sun arose from behind the fleet. It was an awe inspiring and terrifying sight, and several men prayed to Ulric and Morr when they saw the full glory of the blockading fleet.

The sound of war drums began to pound from out beyond the walls. It would seem that their enemies had decided to attack at dawn. It was the beginning of the long awaited assault. He wondered how well the men on the wall would fare. Then the ships fired a barrage of artillery towards them.

What seemed like a dozen or so cannons opened fire simultaneously, their flashes looking eerie in the water. The throbbing of the war drums was broken up by the scream of cannon balls careening towards them. Instinctively, Hans winced and ducked. The dull roar of explosions and shattered stone filled his ears. He got up, his grip firm, but he felt his knees buckle and shake. Years of training and experience had not prepared him for the terrifying spectre of being on the receiving end of a bombardment.

The Gilneans were running to man their posts. Lorna Crowley seemed to know her business well. The sea facing fortifications had been badly savaged by the enemy when they had last taken Northwatch, and there hadn't been enough time to repair them. Not that it would matter. The curtain walls seemingly favoured by the Alliance were notoriously unreliable in the face of cannon bombardment. Of all the people in the old world, the Tileans and Estalians had figured that out.

Instead the gilneans had removed some of the more unstable rocks and put up a rough palisade on top. It provided an excellent spot for gunnery and was low enough that it would be hard to hit with cannon fire.

Their enemies certainly tried to hit with their cannons, but the art of big guns was something they had clearly not mastered. Hans had never realised why Erich had obsessed with the minutest details regarding gunnery. Borgio had taken to call him the little siegemaster, half in jest and half earnestly. Now Hans knew why. Despite the thunder of the cannons, their effect was almost negligible. The movement of the ships, the swell of the sea, the wind and even the sun combined to make their bombardment ineffective. After a few volleys, his men began to get used to the bombardment.

"Not very good are they eh?" Hans said trying to take their minds off the cannonballs being fired at them.

"Hah, they wouldn't hit the Ulricsberg at this rate." Someone replied. Everyone laughed at that joke. They all remembered the scorches and damage Middenheim had suffered during Archaon's failed invasion. They were sons of the Empire who had survived the end of the world. An orc army, no matter how many elves or walking corpses it was bolstered with bothered them much.

The Gilneans were all running around taking up positions. Hans saw a dozen or so pikemen run towards the wall to shore up their positions. The enemy transports were advancing under the cover of their cannon fire, filled with monsters eager to conquer. They would soon learn what it meant to attack a fortress defended by well drilled men and women.

"It is time mercenary. I want front row seats of the fight." Dana proclaimed.

Hans turned to look at her and swore loudly. His men backed away at the apparition She had summoned some sort of monstrosity while everyone else was running around trying to find cover. It looked like an amorphous blob of water, roughly given a shape of a creature with large forelimbs and something that resembled a head – although there was no face to speak of. Perhaps that was a mercy. The hulking thing's body was filled with ripples of water, and a blast of chill radiated from the being. It reminded Hans of the Reik in flood, a wholly unpleasant memory from his days as a state trooper. "Mannan's trident, what the hell is that?" He managed to ask.

"Hmm, Mannan, who is that?" Dana asked. "Oh, you are wondering about my elemental? Its a beauty isn't it?"

The watery blob was spraying water all around itself, dousing them all in a spray of fresh water. It was certainly refreshing but Hans worried that he might catch a chill. The only person not being doused was the sorceress herself. She had surrounded herself with a small almost invisible aura of magic which reflected the water spray while making it shimmer with many hues. Hans could only dimly nod. None of the darkest shamans of the norscan tribes – the most powerful wizards that existed – had made anything so powerful or sophisticated. He might not know much about magic, but he could sense that it was something spectacular he was witnessing. "I- I suppose." It was all he could manage.

"I was apprenticed to a Kul Tiran, one of those strange tide worshippers. He taught me how to summon Greater Water Elementals." She grinned. "As you can see, I have improved it. Considerably." Then she looked at the approaching ships. "Now come, minions, we have Horde to kill."

By the time they managed to reach the front line, the ships had docked. Dozens of orcs, elves and even a couple of what seemed like beastmen minotaurs were scrambling towards the defensive line. The Gilneans were having a merry time taking pot shots at them. As squads of the greenskins disembarked, they would be hit by disturbingly accurate gunfire. Even from this distance, Hans could see spells being cast by elves, orcs and a few of the minotaur to defend themselves. The Gilneans simply shifted their focus to their wizards, overwhelming their defenses with volley after volley of lead.

This seemed to be going well. Hans grinned as the orcs were cut down repeatedly even as they struggled to gain ground. As long as the gilneans could shoot and the enemy could not, they would be able to hold this ground all day.

Still, despite the heroic resistance being put up against them, the Horde began to gain ground inch by bloody inch. The docks themselves had been cleared of defenders, and only a small group of swordsmen and pikemen defended the entrance to the port itself, so the Horde was able to march ahead, impeded only by the sporadic but accurate gunfire from the ramparts.

By the time the first transport ships left, a second wave of the ships was approaching close behind, covered by the artillery that the Horde had deployed against them. For all their bestial rage, the Horde forces had finally managed to set up a small beachhead against the defenders. Several mages had been shot but they had raised a barrier that reflected most small bullets. Under this magical aegis, they were able to regroup and wait for reinforcements.

Dana did not give them a chance. She pointed with her staff and her water elemental surged forward, dowsing Hans and his men with a spray of water. He sputtered and coughed trying to get the magical liquid out of his nose. Friendly or not, magic was unreliable and inherently corrupting. He prayed to Ulric that his soul hadn't been scarred by this unwanted contact with the witch's magic.

Hans turned to shout at Dana but she simply pointed to the elemental and stuck out her tongue in an impish manner. As soon as the elemental had taken to the water, it had begun to grow in size. In the span of minutes as it moved towards the Horde beachhead, it had begun to grow and expand. The mages, panicked and several of them stopped maintaining the shield to hurl balls of fire at this new threat. Unsurprisingly, they were extinguished, and the Gilneans fired another salvo of gunfire at the weakened shields. Hans saw several orcs and elves go down, while a minotaur toppled over and fell into the water.

The ships turned away their focus from the sea facing walls and began to bombard this monstrosity. The cannon balls went through the elemental without harming it for they were for all their efforts shooting at water.

With a swell and a rush, the elemental began to move at the transport ships, dragging water to itself and growing to humongous proportions. A ship was torn apart from below as the thing emerged from the water and stood at its full proud height.

Everyone stopped the battle and turned to look at it. The water elemental was massive, reaching over the walls of Northwatch and it raised it's arms and a tidal wave of cold shock echoed all around it. Men, elves orcs and minotaurs all clutched themselves as the harsh coldness of winter raked them with it's icy blades. Several men, used now to the warmth of Tilea chattered their teeth and shivered uncontrollably. Hans managed to get up and see what damage the witch had wrought on them. Once more he was more than a little terrified of the humans in these strange lands. Two dozen of the enemy had been encased in a block of ice.

Dana smiled smugly. "And after the freeze, the shattering." She said and raised her arms above her head and channelled a short spell. A ball of ice appeared in her hands before hurtling towards the trapped Horde force with an unnatural speed. It exploded in their midst and as if obeying a command from her, the ice holding the horde forces shattering, along with the members inside them. Someone in his unit cursed loudly at the sight, but the rest of them were speechless. So this scantily dressed strumpet could easily shred through the entirety of Todbringer's court wizards without breaking a sweat. It would be a grave mistake to get on her bad side.

"Hey, champion, can you sink that fleet?" Crowley shouted from the battlements.

"You asked for it boss." Dana replied throwing a wink.

The elemental began to move towards the assembled Horde flotilla, taking up more water as it went. The nimbler ships moved away from it, but the bigger steam belching monstrosities and transports were not as fast. Hans saw at least two more of the latter capsize and sink. Bodies flailed wildly and were slowly dragged under in the unnatural currents. It was a grim end for any foe, food for Stormfels. A few of them actually managed to swim to their ships even in the dangerous tide and were helped abroad.

Suddenly the smaller and more elegant ships turned to focus on the water elemental. Rays of magic shot towards the vast living tower of water, and an angry gasp from Dana told Hans that something bad was happening. The Elemental stretched it's arms and a rushed ahead, rocking one of the smoke belching ships and tearing a wooden one to smithereens, but the others continued their magical attack on the monstrosity. Hans saw the thing quiver and shake, struggling to hold it's shape under the relentless assault.

"The bastards are trying to destroy my bindings!" Dana shrieked.

"Mage, destroy the transports." Crowley shouted from the walls.

"What?"

"DESTROY. THEIR TRANSPORTS" She shouted again. Hans could have sworn that everyone in Northwatch would have heard the order.

"Oh, right." Dana raised her hand and began to chant an incantation. A purplish haze of magic covered her and caused her to levitate, eliciting several oaths and curses from his men. Hans just stared at her dumbly before turning to look at the actual battle taking place over the water. He would never understand what was happening but it seemed that the elemental grew in size and ferocity. It flailed about wildly as it smashed every ship it could get it's hands on. Even though they were enemies of humanity, it made Hans uneasy at the ruthless manner of their death.

This last bit of effort was too much for Dana, and she stumbled and fell backward. Almost instantly, the massive elemental reverted back to it's natural state and plunged down into the sea. One of the steamships was lifted upwards by the ensuing tidal wave and crashed into one of the fast moving and elegant boats, destroying it utterly.

The Gilneans cheered, and Hans' men joined in the merriment. They had sunk several enemy ships and drowned hundreds of their soldiers without taking any losses in return. This was the strength of powerful magic. If the empire had a dozen wizards like Dana they would never have to worry about the Norscans or Archaon's hosts. The witch herself was seemingly unconscious as Hans found she had a pulse but was otherwise insensate. Someone had the bright idea of splashing her with water and had to be vetoed. A person that could sink ships with magic was best treated extremely gingerly.

"Sargent, what do you think we should do now?" Crowley asked.

"The Grand Captain said we had to fall back if we successfully defended the harbour, Captain. I think we did that." He shouted back.

She nodded and said something that Hans couldn't hear. "Alright then. We are leaving. Mercenaries, you can take the cannon with you."

The men who were somewhat proficient with Common swore loudly. Dragging a cannon uphill in the midst of a battle was stressful and dangerous – as well as downright insulting. On the other hand, Erich would have their salaries docked if they were to abandon a fully stocked cannon. Like every Wissenlander who had set foot in Nuln, the man loved his big guns.

After the excitement of the Horde assault, an uncertain quiet began to settle on the docks. Hans watched as bits and pieces of the Horde fleet slowly washed on shore. Occasionally a hat or a cloak, but more frequently, smaller boxes and pieces of wood. If the elves who had taken Luigi with them had been successful, it would mean that the enemy would be attacking a heavily defended castle from one direction. A determined force of defenders would wreak terrible havoc on the attackers. They were nothing if not determined.

But the same could be said for their foes. The Orcs of Kalimdor were a strange lot. Erich had often expounded on theories that orcs were like weeds. In all their years of fighting, they had never seen a female orc, or goblin for that matter. Until now.

To no one's surprise, Rudi had been the first to discover that some of the orcs that had died fighting them had teats. It had puzzled several of the men then and they had found similar corpses. Some of the less mangled ones had been stripped down and compared. The consensus was their they were definitely women, and they had all the parts. Their tusks were smaller and somewhat less bestial.

Erich had simply shrugged. It didn't matter if the orcs had women fighting in the ranks now, he said. They were still greenskins, and they would see the mercenaries dead or worse.

Still it made Hans uneasy to actually kill women, even if they were orcs. Killing the defenceless was a work for cultists, norscans and the starving. Erich had always maintained a sense of chivalry when it came to women. After he had hanged several men for raping during a campaign, Von Peiper's company had gained the reputation of being chivalrous gentlemen when it came to women and children. That had never stopped them from sacking towns and taking their provisions of course, and nor did it seem that this idea extended to the orcs. No one expected any less from a Sollander.

The men had begun to form up into a rough column, and Hans had told teams of eight men to drag the cannon back towards the upper citadel. Two more carried the boxes of powder, well out of the way from any torches. He expected that by the time everyone had pushed the cannons, they would have returned to the camp.

By the time they had left the harbour and crossed the ruined barracks, the men were deep into a discussion about the witch that Hans chose to stay out of. They were in awe of her and for good reason. She had summoned a being of pure water that had smashed apart a landing fleet. With a flick of her fingers she could probably send them to stormfels' halls. Hans was happy that Dana didn't understand Reikspiel. She probably would have put a curse on them if she could understand the particulars of what the men were saying. At the same time, magic was inherently chaotic in nature, and over time the best and brightest always fell to the corrupting whispers of the dark gods. Someone as powerful as Dana would be a great asset to the Dark Gods.

The sounds of human shouts and orcish bellows brought Hans out of his reverie. The column of men stopped and gripped their weapons. Even the Witch stopped her strutting and cracked her knuckles in anticipation. Gradually the orcish yells subsided and was replaced by a sounds of cheering coming from human voices. The men advanced with their weapons held all the same to reach the main road to the citadel. When they reached the crossroads, they took in the view.

A hundred odd pikemen barred the road towards the interior of the fortress, holding their ground between the ruined walls and makeshift barricades. Beyond them lay a pile of Orcish bodies with their weapons and armour being stripped by several of the victorious Tileans. Unlike those of the old world, the variety of orcs in Kalimdor was impressive. Various shades of greens, browns and black ones lay dying in the dirt. Occasionally one would manage to pick up a weapon, only to be stabbed by a nimbler man who would then loot the bodies. There was an air of suppressed excitement. The Tileans had seen some action, and it led to them eager for more for more.

As for Erich, he stood over a particularly large and dead orc with a banner at it's back, tugging intently at something. Beckoning his men to stop, Hans ambled over to him and heard the sound of cloth ripping. Erich turned around with his sword in his hand and Hans swore softly. The man was in a terrible state.

There were dark circles under Erich's eyes and his movements seemed clumsier than usual. He almost tripped as he moved away from the dead orc and shambled towards Hans, face set in a tired smile. With the barest hint of a nod, he took the cloth, which was much of the dead orc's banner and began to clean his sword. Erich's stare had always been intense. Now with the general dishevelled look, tottering gait and eerie half smile, the man looked like a man afflicted. He raised a hand to ward Hans away.

"What's wrong?"Hans asked, voice edged with worry.

"What's wrong? You look like someone pushed you into the sea. I don't want my powder wet."

"Erich, you look like a vampire sucked you dry"

"I haven't been sleeping well these last few days. Those damned orcs keep drumming at night. We are going to kill them all, and then I can sleep." Erich replied, and let off a big yawn.

Hans had been on enough night watches to know that the Horde had not been drumming. This was worrisome. Could it be that Erich was on the verge of breaking down?

"Anyways, I want you and your men to fall back with the Gilneans. Luigi and the elves should be back soon. After we are done mauling the orcs, we can fall back and defend the citadel. Put all that grapeshot to good use." He wiped his brow with the clean side of the cloth and threw it away.

Hans was about to warn Erich about his suspicions when the roll of war drums began to echo from the outer walls.

"So the walls have fallen then." Hans pondered. The Tileans would not be defending a hastily erected barricade if that was the case.

"The orcs fell straight into our trap. The Scarlets retreated in good order with Phillip and that goat legged one called Rajash covered the rear."

"Did they make it?"

"They are probably resting now. You should go join them with your men." He beckoned down the road.

Taking that as his cue, Hans turned around to leave. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see a mob of orcs moving towards the crossroads. Erich smiled at him with his hand outstretched and Hans saw some of that iron resolve creep back into his eyes. His doubts vanished. Tired or not, Erich was thinking straight, which meant that he was sticking to his plan.

All they had to do was do the same. He turned around and ordered his halberdiers to leave. Turning the corner, he heard the sounds of orcish war cries, and the Erich shouting something in High Tilean to the cheers of his men. He couldn't help but smile. The captain had learned tenacity well from the Tileans. One of Hans' men tugged at his sleeves and said. "We aren't going to be fighting orcs?"

Hans simply smiled and said. "Soon enough boys. We will be chopping orcs before the day is done."

* * *

Erich yawned loudly. Truth be told he was beginning to get bored. An Arabyan philosopher had once mentioned that in the long scheme of things, time resembles a circle. He would have to agree. After all these years, he was back where he started. Another fortress. Tileans at his back and orcs to his front.

Of course, there was no comparison to the defense of Monte Castello to this one. No drunken war cries of the brazen Venators would fill the sky at the last moment. None of his men would ever doubt him as they had at that hour. There was no reason for him to stand at the forefront of every Horde attack. It was purely self gratification.

Erich knew that if he stopped to rest, he would not wake up at all. His body trembled ever so slightly as he closed his eyes and sucked in his breath. A Tilean adventurer had taught him that trick many a year ago. The man had journeyed to the mystical lands of Cathay and Ind and come back fabulously rich. As luck would have it, he had gambled most of it away. For his part, Erich still considered the bag of coins he had spent learning those breathing techniques to be the best deal he had ever made. If his father had been half as good a teacher as that half mad merchant, Erich would never have left his home.

Still, breathing only took people so far. Erich knew should have collapsed by now. There was something in the drink or the air that fortified not only him but the men of the Old World as well. Men here seemed to recover from serious wounds with nothing more than a few scars. He himself had half the bones broken in his body by rampaging ogres, only to make a full recovery with a haste that would have seemed like witchcraft in the Empire. Just to make sure, he rotated his wrists and cracked his knuckles.

They had been at it half a day. Slowly giving ground to the Horde forces as they repeatedly assaulted fortified positions. Even the strictest of his Professors at Nuln would find very little to fault with his conduct of this defence. His men had gotten used to the rhythm by now. They would fight until the Horde had almost overwhelmed a strong point before forcing them to fall back. Taking advantage of the confusion, they would retreat.

Erich had to give these orcs credit. It would seem that their time with the elves had taught the greenskins well. They would organize an assault and attack in a manner that was frighteningly wily. Had it been one of his smug lordling compatriots from the Empire, his defense would have failed long ago. When the Horde had managed to surprise him at the second strongpoint, he had begun to play their game. Sometimes he would defend a location until the enemy was completely routed before falling back to a safer place. At others, he would feign a rout of his own to lure the greenskins into an handgunner ambush. Artillery was another key. The mortars must have killed hundreds of them on their own. The observers were adept at their job and several times the Horde assaults had smashed by raw firepower alone. The Horde's siege weapons were made for battering down walls and setting cities on fire. In the gutted streets and winding pathways of the ruins of Northwatch, they were all but useless.

For all the strategems and tactics of his own, a part of Erich's mind grew more and more despondent. The Greenskins of the Old World would have routed a long time ago. Not these bastards. These many hued orcs that made up the Horde were tenacious enough to rival the undead. Even now he saw from a distance another attack forming up by the outer walls. They had put up their bright red banners on the battlements and were swarming for another fresh charge.

Erich slowly and deliberately began to reload his gun while someone else whistled a tune. In a few minutes all of them would be dancing the deadly dance once more. It was at moments like this that time seemed to stretch on forever. Someone said something eliciting a laugh from a gaggle. Another stubbed his toe and swore loudly. Erich's irritation suddenly spiked and he wished the orcs would be attacking now. He exhaled as the greenskin attack began to move. He cocked his pistol, unsheathed his sword and waited.

As he unsheathed his sword, the men stopped ambling about and began forming a rough line, with pikes still at the rest. The murmured conversations and jokes died down and they looked at him in askance. After pushing back the Horde several times throughout the day, they knew what was coming. Erich took a step back and heard the shuffling down the line as the formation tightened and ordered out. The orcs were getting closer and their footsteps could be felt in his boots. A long time ago he would have been terrified. Now it felt thrilling.

"Hold your ground boys, Here they come." Erich yawned.

The men shouted their assent and the front rank knelt to brace, pikes angled upward.

The orcs were now close enough for the men to make out individual faces. A feeling of loathing crept up Erich's spine. The despoilers of Solland were coming at them like the villains from an old nanny's tale. They had grown fat by preying on men, but now they faced the dogs of war.

An orc, bigger than the others with a wolf pelt for a helmet raised it's hand and shouted something. Erich recognized two words on account of them being shouted by greenskins and the occasional undead all day. 'Garrosh' and 'Lok'Tar Ogar.'

In return, Rudi began to play a quick tune on his flute. The sweet sound cut through the roaring orcish battlecries as a halberd cuts through flesh. By the time Erich was amidst his men, the pike phalanx was sets.

Moments before the crash he gave the order to brace and ducked underneath the legs of his men. He knew what was going to happen next.

With a resounding shock the Horde attack ran into the braced pikes of the Tilean mercenaries. Knees buckled, pikes were dropped and for an awful moment Erich was seized with a fear that maybe this time, the fury of the assault would be enough to overwhelm the line and they would be cut down where they fell. It was something he had seen too often. Then the feeling passed. All those countless hours of drill that he had imposed upon his men worked their charm. The men whose pikes had fallen crouched down and brought out their swords, axes and hammers while the rest automatically took their place. A phalanx was more than a simple wall of spears, it symbolised unity and purpose. Hundreds of ordinary men trusting their lives to their comrades as they stood against the horrors that humanity faced.

Then the deadly dance began. Under the music of the flute and drum the men shoved and stabbed at the attacking orcs. Their main purpose was to hold the bigger and stronger foe in check, while others like Erich crawled forward under the cover of the pikes to hack and stab away at the greenskins. It was quite an ugly affair, stabbing at the orc's nethers, and one Erich took no little pleasure in doing.

His first target was a big specimen that had managed be impaled on one pike and was dragging himself along to kill the man wielding it. The tilean was doubtless trying to pull the pike back to little avail. Erich decided to help the man by stabbing the greenskin in the nethers. The eager growl turned into a yelp as Erich's sword drew blood and the brute toppled backward while bleeding on the ground. The pike was withdrawn and the man picked another target to poke and prod.

For what seemed like forever, Erich was surrounded in the shadows under the battle, chipping away at orcish attackers along with his men. It was a difficult task, and one fraught with danger. He managed to roll away from a clawed hand reaching down, but the man next to him was not so lucky. The claws went through his eyes and the man screamed loudly before the orc pushed it's fist in deeper and killing him. Erich saw the limp body and thanked Ranald for sparing him. In turn, he shot the elbow and the orc roared in range as the arm was nearly torn apart by the shot rushing ahead merrily. No matter what else, the people of the Eastern Kingdoms knew how to make good gunpowder.

Erich smiled as the shot rang in his ear. The signal had been given. After a few moments, the sounds of dozens of men rising up from their concealed positions changed the tune of the deadly dance. Then the volley of gunfire hit the orcs at close range. Littorio had repositioned his men to a defilading position hidden in the ruined buildings. The firing zones had been picked and barricaded well in advance at every chokepoint, meaning that the orcs were being hit by gunfire at close range where the weapon's inaccuracy didn't matter.

For all their savage bravery the Horde forces did not expect being shot at close range. Even so they might have rallied around one of their leaders but once again drill proved to be the deciding factor. Every time time a squad would finish their volley, another would take up their place with their weapons primed and loaded. Their line began to splinter and the Pikemen began to aggressively push back with their pikes. After Hans saw the wolfskin headress wearing orc go down, the others had the fight beaten out of them and fled.

The men held their pikes up and one of the other men who had fallen down offered Erich a hand. He took it gratefully, thanking the man in his native tongue. Somehow, his hat had managed to stay on during the entire battle, and Erich took it off to run a gloved finger through his hair. It had been warm work as an Imperial engineer would put it, and Erich was glad for his men. He looked around to see the carnage wrought by the battle.

It was a small corner of hell. Orc bodies littered the path to the citadel and the ground was slick with their darker blood. Another oddity, Erich noted. The Orcs of the Old world had brighter blood. Now was not the time to be dwelling on orcish blood colour. The handgunners under Littorios command were regrouping behind the pikemen, their faces stained with soot. The building they had been hiding in looked as though it had caught fire. The smoke would dissipate by the time Erich took stock of the men.

"Casualties?" He asked offhandedly while wiping his face.

"Three dead, fifteen wounded." An older man offered. He was a grizzled veteran – ten years his senior if Erich would have laid a wager.

Erich smiled. He had expected more dead. A total of eleven people had been killed or would die by the end of the day, and another fifty were injured. He hadn't bothered to keep a tally on the dead orcs. There would always be more. Still, every man dead was a bitter pill to swallow for him, even after all these years. Perhaps his father had been right. He did care too much about the dead and dying under his command.

Littorio sauntered over to him, weapon still smoking. "What's the plan?"

Erich looked behind them. They had reached the inner walls and the road now led sharply upwards and turned to the right. The ground was too sloped and uneven to make a stand with a phalanx. Maybe if they had a battery of Helblasters...

He shook his head. One had to fight with the weapons within reach. "Its time we fell back to better positions. We did a good job holding them back and making them pay for using the road. Take your pick lads."

The men who had taken part in the fighting eagerly began to pilfer the corpses for loot and trophies. After all this hard work they deserved to be rewarded. Food and victuals were wisely left untouched – it was orc food – while the men made off with rings, jewels, smaller bits of plate mail and trophies like ears and teeth. The latter two were invaluable as proof of their martial prowess. If they were to win the battle, the lads would be brining the ears to keep them around for some time.

For his part, Erich picked out the only thing unique in the pile of broken orc bodies. The claw wielding orc was dead but the wolf headress was mercifully undamaged. He picked it up and admired it. The beast would have been as big as an outrider's horse – a real direwolf – Its black coloured fur and amber eyes had been artfully preserved and would have seemed at home in a Bretonnian Duke's hall. Erich felt disturbed that orcs could actually make something as wonderful and unique as this thing. As a mark of respect to the crafter, Erich did not cut off the dead orc's head.

"Where are you planning on keeping that?" The older Tilean man appeared grinning from ear to ear. Erich noticed several bloody bags of coin glinting on his best.

He truly hadn't considered that. "You have an idea?"

The man grinned and pointed at his pike. Erich burst out laughing. It was a novel idea certainly, and one that was too fun to ignore. He knelt down to place the head on the spearhead and stumbled.

"Bugger. Capitano, are you injured?" The man loomed over him and pulled him back up.

"Tired. I feel like I could sleep for a week." Erich yawned. His body was finally catching up to him. The statement was only half in jest.

"Heh, I want to do something else after the battle. The women here are the ones to make babies with." The man hocked a glob of phlegm.

"Ah, my friend all the ladies of Miragliano will pine after your polished manners." Erich replied as the man began to fiddle with his tights.

"We can't all be handsome and lithe like you Capitano. After all a nobleman fighting on foot with the common soldiery gets the women's face blush." The man said in turn.

"Oh so you agree that I have a better chance than you with the women here. I am glad we could agree on something." Talking was good. It forced him to stay awake. A few more moments of this and the sleepiness would pass away for a while.

The man grinned. "You are out of the competition."

Erich's ears perked up at that. "What do you mean?"

"Half the camp knows you are drooling over the long eared elf that has been accompanying us."

Erich suddenly felt his face flush and desperately hoped it was just his body reacting through the rigours it was being subjected to.

"Really? I personally do not know anything about that."

"Come on Capitan. You perk up and desperately try to look busy when she is in your general vicinity. Many of us saw you looking at her longingly during the voyage to this land. I must say, you really go for the finest beauties one can see."

Erich burst out laughing, clearing the last remnants of sleep from his mind. "No, I just find that an elf who doesn't mock our very existence every other sentence pleasant to be around."

"I have to agree with you there. Pretty or not, that Dawnbreeze girl can soldier on a march with the rest of us and look like one of those expensive whores in bordellos only Capitanos and Nobles can afford." The man nodded.

"You wouldn't know the first thing about courtesans. They are a little out of your reach. The owners also do not generally allow humble merchants of Morr such as ourselves to spend time around their...merchandise."

"Capitano, we all know that they allowed you and Luigi in as a reward for the services you did to a dozen cities over your career. Might as well make the best use of it." The man inched closer, and the wolf's headress flapped on the pike like a grisly standard. "Is it true what they say?"

"What do they say?" Erich found it hilarious that they were talking about the courtesans and pleasure palaces of Tilea in a bloody street covered with orc corpses in the middle of a battle.

"That they are the most beautiful women in the world? How does the Dawnbreeze girl compare to them?"

Erich shrugged. "Not really my type. Captain Dawnbreeze is different from them" Truth be told he had found the Courtesans to be rather droll. Most of their time was spent pleasing nobles that paid others to fight their battles and take all the credit. Beautiful they might be, but Erich could never shake the feeling of judgemental stares. His time growing up in the empire as a poor aristocrat had soured his perspective on all the trappings of high society. Besides, dockside whores and tavern maids did things that their more expensive colleagues would find distasteful. Luigi was one of those few men who could charm both of those working women and leave them pining for him. Then again the young man literally had the bearing of a prince.

He looked up and saw that the sun was moving westwards. They were out of streets to fight and hold off orcs in. The skirmishing had been as perfect as could be – like a fine soup before the main course. Now the pitched battle awaited, and it was something Erich had been planning for weeks.

"Lets go. Tell you what. If we win this battle and go back to some place that is more civilised than this, I will try to see what Dawnbreeze looks like without her clothes on." Erich couldn't help but grin. He would empty out his coinpurse at the first tavern he saw and hire some girl who didn't have the lover's pox. After all, being thrifty was part of being the leader of a large mercenary band.

* * *

Jo'rof attempted to calm the water spirits desperately as the transport lurched wildly in the churning waters. To his horror, the will of the spirits was overriden by strong arcane magic that seemed to be originating from deeper waters to the east. The orcs around him – the Blackrocks and the Mag'har, gripped their weapon with a rage that could be felt emanating from them. It would indeed by a terrible way to die – drowning in the high seas – instead of a honourable death against the Alliance dogs.

"What is going on shaman. Why isn't the elemental binding to your will!" Captain Kro'kosh screamed at him. The Blackrock orc wore a full set of plate and wielded two massive axes with their heads as big as his face.

"There is something wrong with the water spirits. They seem to have gone mad and refuse to listen to my requests."

"Its the damn mage, she is summoning that freakish thing." A keen eyed orc butted in. His eyes were glued to a telescope of gnomish make, and he could clearly see what the forces arrayed against them. He had alerted Kro'kosh that the first wave of soldiers landing at the docks had all died before even getting close to the human defenders.

"Flanking speed. Make for the docks. If we die, we take as many of those miserable pinkskins with us!" Kro'kosh shouted, and the warriors in the ship roared their assent. There were over a hundred of them on the ship.

"If only Blackfuse had developed better landing craft for us." The hunter muttered.

"You dare to challenge the Warchief's methods of war?" A mag'har youth shouted in anger. She was lithe and wore little more than a loincloth and a pair of heavy black iron swords. A dangerous warrior in close quarters, and one Jo'rof had been mustering the courage to speak to. Now that their survival was in question, he would wait no longer. By the ancestors, he didn't even know her name.

As he shoved his way towards her, the boom of cannonfire from the small flotilla made everyone wince. At least one orc fell overboard with a splash. No one got up to help. With the sea lurching wildly they would be joining that unfortunate soul before long. For his part, Jo'rof hoped that his ancestors would receive the poor orc as a proud warrior fighting for the Horde.

The elves on their destroyers began to summon magic, and Jo'rof felt the wind shift as the wind spirits grew uncomfortable. He knew what the spell was. An arcane attack that unshackled magical bindings and destroyed summoned creatures. He had been on the receiving end of it long enough to know what a skilled group of mages could do. The monstrous water elemental would dissipate and they could make the landing safely.

Alarmingly, the human mage channelling the spell increased the size of the water elemental even as it began to lose it's form. It loomed over the transport ships and then the spell was finally undone. In a few seconds the entire prodigious mass of water fell down from the height, over the ships.

The wooden deck got torn to splinters instantly, and the scores of bodies fell into the churning waters. For a long and awful moment, Jo'rof saw drowning bodies desperately trying to swim upward or loosening their armour but it was too late. Their mouths opened, the water rushed in and they drowned. With the last bit of his mind, he made an entreaty to the spirits, asking for aid in his final hour. The waters paid him no heed, but the air – the smallest of the wind elements rushed into his lungs as he slowly began to push upwards. He could feel the spirits of the orcs around him go dim and vanish as they became one with the spirits of Azeroth.

Then he began to swim towards the ships that were still firing at the battlements of Northwatch in defiance. He knew that it was too far and he would not make it, but a sense of self preservation drove him onward.

The next thing he knew, Jo'rof was lying on a soft bed of kodohide. The tent was similar to the ones used by Horde caravaneers who would ply up and down the barrens. The room was kept warm by a small firepit which threw smoke up in the air. From the outside, voices shouting and cursing in orcish about nothing in particular assailed him. This was a war camp, similar to the ones the Horde had used in Northrend and the war against the Alliance.

He relaxed instantly. This was a safe place. After a few moments of checking his body, he rejuvenated himself with a small refreshing waterskin. The cold spring water made him smile. Clean water had been hard to come by since the Cataclysm. There was nothing more to do but make his report.

When he went outside, he immediately realised where he was. The Horde banners, the smoking walls, the demolishers firing wildly into the battlements and the fortress. It would seem that the second siege of Northwatch was underway once more.

The camp was abuzz with squads of orcs running and jostling to take place in the next assault. Goblins ran into the siege engines, busy as bees loading the demolishers with their flaming ammunition. A few Tauren shaman healed the ones that had been injured. One of them looked at him and waved.

"Ah young orc. You seem to have come to. I am happy to tell you that you were only slightly injured and slept while the fire dried you. It is a good thing the flotilla dropped you here. The Warchief has ordered that the time has come to crush the Alliance both at land and sea." He said.

Jo'rof asked, "Did anyone else make it? From the naval attacking force."

The older shaman shook his head sadly. "What happened?"

"Some mage. She summoned a water elemental. When it hit the water, the spirits cried out in anguish and began to coalesce around her creation. It wrecked the transports approaching the harbour and dissipated when the blood elves unshackled it's binding." He shook his head.

"Ah, that is to be expected. Northwatch was a site of - " The shaman's eyes darted around and a look of suspicion came upon his face.

"I follow the ways that Thrall taught us." Jo'rof hastily said. The Dark shaman under Hellscream were successful in coercing the elements, although it came t a higher price.

"So you know what happened here. Small wonder that the elements are proving to be so uncooperative to us now." He finished his thought sadly.

"What difference is there between us and those that traffic with demons?" Under Hellscream, Warlocks were being quickly pushed to the fringes. They had always been a suspicious presence in the Horde and several warlocks had migrated to the Undercity after the Hero of Northrend had become the Warchief.

The tauren shaman chose not to answer and instead looked to the sea once more. "The sea cries out in terror. Something bad is about to happen."

"Another one of those weapons that Hellscream used at Theramore?" Jo'rof had cheered with the others when the city had been destroyed. Jaina Proudmoore had stabbed the Horde in the back even as she cried out for peace.

"Perhaps." The Tauren looked sad as he remembered what had happened to the city. Jo'rof found that odd.

"I should get going. The Overlord will want to know what happened." He left the shaman tending to the injured and made his way to the bigger tent.

When he entered the tent, one of the guards whispered something into the ear of the grizzled orc who stood over a table with maps and small figurines on it. The orc turned to face Jo'rof and for a moment he stood in awe.

Varok Saurfang was a living legend to the younger generation of orcs. He had fought on Draenor, during the first, second and third war and had lived to tell the tale. The loss of his son had only emboldened the veteran's commitment to better serve the Horde, and it was a sacrifice that was as honourable as it was dire.

"Ah, young Jo'rof, they tell me that you have recovered from your ordeal at sea quite well. Are you here to make a report?"

Jo'rof told the older orc everything he had seen and witnessed. In turn the orc simply frowned some more and walked back to the table. Then, slowly and gently, he put several chips on the blue harbour into a small leather pouch.

"You did well, Shaman. The Tauren tell me that the elements in the Dustwallow Marshes have been in disarray ever since the destruction of Theramore. Our new shamanistic practioners are not helping."

He turned to a skin of water and drained it one big gulp. "Where were you born?"

"In the camps, overlord." The Internment Camps were a bitter memory for the orcs who had been born and lived in Azeroth all their lives.

"Is this your first war?"

"I fought in the Borean Tundra under you and the Warchief."

"Good, good. You do have some experience of real war then." He scribbled something on a scroll and handed it to Jo'rof.

It was a commission to join Saurfang's retinue. His hands trembled as he read it. Fighting alongside the living legend? His ancestors would be proud of him.

The venerable orc smiled at him. "I heard that you practice the ways of shamanism set down by Thrall. I will have need of you in the coming days and months."

Jo'rof was about to ask what that meant when another figure walked into the tent. This one was also well known to the populace of Durotar. Hellscream's enforcer and commander of the Kor'kron – Malkorok – was in a foul mood.

"Saurfang, have you gone soft? The fortress should have fallen by now. I came here expecting to collect heads."

Saurfang sighed. "It would have if the Warchief had deigned to give me sufficient naval support."

Malkorok snarled, "The Warchief needs those ships to crush the Alliance dogs once and for all. Once their fleet is defeated, we shall conquer the rest of Kalimdor for the Horde!"

"And as it stands, the few forces given the task of assaulting the harbour and flank the defenders have failed. The three pronged assault that the Warchief used to take Northwatch for the first time can no longer work." Saurfang's tightly balled fist slammed on the table.

Malkorok's eyes glinted savagely as he opened a scroll and began to read. "By the orders of the Warchief, the command of the Siege of Northwatch is transferred to the Kor'kron. Overlord Saurfang is ordered to stay in an advisory capacity in light of his great feats of service to the Horde."

"What do you plan on doing?" Saurfang got up and asked Malkorok the question directly. It would be foolish to ignore the Warchief's command.

"Finish what you started, Overlord. This dallying brings dishonour to the Orcs."

"And yet I see no Kor'kron. They are all in Orgrimmar. What will you assault the human defenders with?" Saurfang's tone held only the slightest hint of sarcasm.

"I will do what you could not. We will attack the humans and show them no mercy. This band of poorly equipped militia is not worth spending too much effort over. Our strength alone will carry the day."

"And yet many of our warriors died taking the wall, while the humans successfully retreated. They have been doing a good job of holding ground and retreating only when their positions are about to be overwhelmed. Their commander is wily. Sylvanas Windrunner's ambassador said as much." Saurfang countered.

"Are you on our side or theirs?" Malkorok bared his teeth.

"I have been outsmarting them. If I had done what you planned, We would have lost by now. Our losses are moderate and we have pushed them out of the deadly maze of the outer fortress. Now all that remains is their citadel which they have fortified with a few ship's cannons and half injured people. A properly organized assault with help from the fleet will wipe them out."

"All I hear are excuses. You have grown soft since Icecrown citadel. Perhaps your weakling wh-"

Malkorok did not finish his sentence. With a quickness that belied the orc's age, Saurfang smashed into the Blackrock orc with his shoulder. While Malkorok staggered, Saurfang whipped around him and took out a knife.

"Listen to me very carefully. Dranosh Saurfang died charging the Lich King at the Wrathgate. He lived up to his name and died a death no warrior would be ashamed of. You will not speak his name unless you want your tongue cut out." After issuing this threat, Saurfang kicked Malkorok away and spat on the ground.

"Lead my forces. Those that are not too injured are eager to get to grips with the humans. There are only a few hundred of them at most, with a rag tag group of survivors from Theramore. I have won us the hardest part of this battle. Now the rest is up to you."

Jo'rof was stunned. An orc respected by Garrosh Hellscream himself had threatened to cut out the tongue of Malkorok. This was no wizened shopkeeper in Orgrimmar. The Blackrock orc would keep this humiliation to himself.

As the large drums began to sound to signal a general attack, Jo'rof looked up and felt the spirits. The Wind and the Water were agitated while the Earth slumbered. His divination told him what he had long suspected. The real battle was taking far away, at sea. The fate of Northwatch would be decided on the high seas of Kalimdor.

* * *

"Light save us, the orcs are attacking the batteries!" someone screamed in common. Phillip was already rushing ahead with skimpily clad mage at his side. A dozen orcs were clambering over the barricade and trying to cut down the artillery crews. Most of them had abandoned the cannons and were fleeing. Erich was not among them.

Phillip saw the sollander hack away at an orc that had managed to reach the battery. With a shout and a grunt the greenskin fell down on the correct side of the barricade. The enfilading positions the cannons had been placed in offered an excellent and unobstructed view of the battlefield but the orcs were almost constantly attacking the cannons. The bestial Worgen generally did a good job intercepting the orc raiders but now they were on the other side of the battlefield, protecting the leftmost flank while the Scarlet brigade marched into position.

Outnumbered as they were, Erich had only kept the Middenlanders in reserve protect the cannons. They were now fighting in a small square holding off the orc attack. However a dozen or so orcs had broken clear of the scrum and were trying to assault the battery itself.

The first orc that came in front of him was a grey hued orc with yellow eyes and a cruel face. It made to hit his bald head with a straight sword. Phillip blocked it during the swing downward and pushed the orc away. It tried to recover it's footing but his warhammer struck it in the chest and caved in it's chest. It made a sucking sound as it struggled to breathe with a ruined pair of lungs but Phillip was already on another target.

The mage had frozen the legs of a trio of greenskins. Two of them were being peppered with a barrage of ice shards. The biggest one had broken free of it's icy restraints and was about to throw an axe at her. Phillip knew that it would be to swing the hammer at the orc and instead opted to crash into the bulging orc shoulder first.

It felt like charging into a boulder. His hand spasmed and the warhammer fell down with a clatter. However the tackle had the desired effect. Blindsided by his bullrush, the orc fell over and dropped the throwing axe. For a split second Phillip had the advantage and tried to choke the orc with his bare hands. Like squeezing blood from stone, it was largely futile, and the orc punched Phillip for his trouble. His head swam for what seemed like hours from the blow. Somewhere, his instincts kicked in and Phillip had a single thought in his head. Get the throwing axe and kill the orc.

The next few moments stretched out for an eternity as Phillip's hand inched closer to the axe. A small struggle ensued where the orc tried to pummel him with his bare fists. With the last bit of his strength, Phillip grabbed the axe and brought in on top of the orc's head. Screaming litanies of the Sigmarite cult he raised the axe again and again until the greenskin's head had been split in half. He tried standing up but the world spun and the last thing Phillip remembered was Erich's voice clear as the sun.

"Artillery, load grapeshot and prime. On my mark, prepare to fire."

Then everything faded to black.

* * *

Caledra dodged the incoming blow with an ease that seemed stunning to the orc. The axe swung wide and the orc's plate armour exposed it's weakness. It was something she had been targeting ever since the two had been duelling. She jumped up and kicked the orc captain in the head. Stunned, it recoiled for a moment from the unexpected direction of the attack. It was all she needed. Springing forward on the rebound, she thrust her shortsword in the neck of the orc. Dark blood spurted out ina fountain as the amber eyes grew wide and then finally went out. As the orc toppled over, she spat and looked around her.

Vereesa Windrunner's plan had worked. They had managed to flank the enemy forces assaulting the army and had made their way to the Horde's artillery positions. Caledra did not know what Erich's plan had entailed, but it seemed to be working. Even from this distance, she could swear she heard Erich shouting before the the sounds of cannonfire. The sounds of mortar shells exploding, cannon balls whizzing at at a distance and the sustained fire from hundreds of guns drowned out the hacks, slashes and screams of the combatants.

"They certainly are loud." One of the rangers remarked, eliciting chuckles from everyone around him.

Another one tugged at her sleeve. "Is it true? Did that outlander human really defeat Sylvanas?"

Caledra nodded. She was about to describe the battle when Vereesa reappeared with two of her best scouts. She beckoned everyone to gather up and briefed them.

"We have managed to neutralise the guards protecting the demolishers. The only enemies that stand in our way are a few peons and goblins manning the weapons themselves." She gestured to one of her scouts.

The scout, an older elf spoke in a voice scarcely above a whisper. "We will attack them from the eastern side by the docks and from here. They will try to put up a fight but flanking them will cause them to rout. Once they have been dispatched we will destroy their artillery.

"We will regroup by the docks and see where we can go from there. Good luck, and remember, we do this for all the fallen at theramore. For the Alliance." Vereesa finished.

The attack itself went splendidly. In the span of a few minutes, the shouts of alarm from the Goblin engineers and their orcish help had dawdled down to ragged whimpers and death rattles. Under the din of the full fledged battle raging above it seemed almost silent. Even now as the weapons were being set on fire, an eerie hush had settled over their part of the battle. Caledra felt that no matter what happened, the siege had already been decided.

A roar of cannonfire caught her attention. It wasn't the dull thump of a few fast firing shipborne cannons that Erich had managed to scrounge up from a few transport ships. Of more importance was the fact that it was coming from the east. From the _sea._ A few elves looked at the direction of the docks. Most of the rangers had already started to move there, weapons at the ready.

Immediately, Caledra's mind went to the Horde blockade. It would seem they had returned to lend a final effort to help the siege. As she reached the docks, she saw a few Horde warships making their way towards the port. Everyone around her was scrambling to find a place to lay an ambush. No one had noticed a very telling sign until it was almost too late.

"Wait, the ships. They are on fire!" The scout who had helped brief them shouted. He had climbed to the top the battlements and had been observing them for quite some time. Everyone ran towards the dock to see what was happening. Then a majestic sight unfolded before their eyes that Caledra would remember for all of her long years.

An airship tore through the clouds and began to move lower. It fired upon the horde warships from the sky with the ease of a magister flinging fireballs. Each time it fired, the booms would get closer indicating it's approach. One of the ships turned around and tried to unleash a broadside on the flying ship and immediately exploded. Out of the smoke filled horizon more ships started to appear The biggest was clearly an Alliance battleship. The golden prow jutted and bobbed as the ship moved towards the harbour at a fast pace, buoyed by the speed of it's full sails. The harbour erupted into cheers as the massive ship cut through the burning remains of the recently exploded horde vessel.

Caledra was the first to see the pennant flying ovehead. Almost unconsciously she knelt as she saw the familiar banner flying on top of the ship. It was the insignia of the Stormwind Royal Guard. Varian Wrynn himself had come to deliver the final blow.

* * *

 _ **A/N: Sorry for the delay. I grew older by a year and other IRL stuff came out so I took some time writing and rewriting this story. The battle for Northwatch is all but over. What adventures await the men of the Old World in Kalimdor?**_

 _ **Thehappyvampire, thank you. You will be more interested in the next chapter then I suppose.**_

 _ **Blindedinabolthole, He did but its not like it is common knowledge in the Empire or makes up a part of the Cult of Sigmar.**_

 _ **Dios de la nada, I only watched the first pirates of the carribean movie. And the light is supposed to listen to people of great faith. The deal with X'era is building up to something big that helps explain why the men went to Azeroth in the first place.**_

 _ **gods-own, hope you are happy.**_

 _ **Axccel, well their own standing in the Alliance depends on it. Its not like the Alliance will take kindly to Alterac betraying them again once more.**_

 _ **NEETsoc, Don't know. A few of those characters are supposed to be the reader's eyes and ears in other parts of the story.**_

 _ **Guest, Ind has beastmen of all sorts that live in relative harmony with the human population when compared to the rest of Azeroth.**_

 _ **Kelmoria, thank you.**_

 _ **Dragonborn5, well the most important person he has interacted with is Jaina, and then it was only a small battle. Alterac right now is basically a few towns, a half rebuilt city and the Alliance garrison keeping it from being rolled over by a dozen forsaken dark rangers.**_

 _ **highfist, sorry but the mercs landed on the wrong side of the faction divide. I hope you still enjoy the story though.**_

 _ **Savage Theron, thank you. Now that I have finished writing this chapter, I can finally go read what you have written.**_

 _ **sworl, the entire segment of lore where the elves are basically eldar lite was written by gav thorpe when he was writing the path of the eldar series alongside this story. It is a horrible concept that just cheapens the warhammer elves by making them into 40k copies. As far as this story is concerned, Slannesh doesn't have an all access pass to the elf afterlife buffet.**_

 ** _Murthor Deepstone, ask and you shall have a new chapter._**

 ** _Deadliestfan, Regarding the Blood Knights. The skirmish is told from the perspective of Caledra, a high elf who has lived in Quel'Thalas and is attuned to magic in a way that basically no old worlder is. So to her, Paladins using blessings and magic will not seem too out of the picture. Christie Golden used something similar when telling the story of the fall of Northwatch. The only magic mentioned was when the Dark Shaman summoned an army of angry elementals to bowl over the fort. It doesn't necessarily mean that no other spells were casted, but they are more part of Azerothian warfare._**

 ** _Regarding the End Times, the entire thing was a lore abomination that was rushed out as a way to pave the way for AoS. Regarding Alliances in general, the Empire has been helped by the dwarfs multiple times when it came to major invasions from either the greenskins or Undead. The Elves have a permanent presence in Marienburg and the 4E RPG book states that the High elf PC is supposed to_** **_be_** _**a younger elf generally sent to manage their elder's business affairs in the Empire, which indicates that the high elves and dwarfs as a political collective have warm relations with Reikland and by extension the rest of the empire. This retroactive addition to the lore is after the End times is supposed to have taken place and shows that the empire is wildly different from the 3E RPG book which had a tottering Empire on the verge of collapse. The lore of Tilea states that Elves are more frequent there due to the higher number of trading cities and the presence of units like the manflayers and Asarnil the dragonlord there. The bits and pieces of lore that show the empire and the elves fighting each other has mostly to do with Marienburg which got bullied by the High elves into accepting an elven colony in their city and depends upon them to protect their independence from both the empire and bretonnia.**_  
 _ **The dwarfs grumble about the humans and do a number on Essen from time to time but they also steadfastly defend the empire and provide massive financial assistance during the nearly perpetual state of warfare they both are involved in. At the same time both the elves and the dwarfs are dwindling races that are fighting against chaos and disorder in their own corners of the world. In structure it resembles the Alliance from the start of vanilla wow, where the factions are aligned with each other but mostly do their own thing with occasional help to each other.  
The biggest weakness of Warhammer is that their models did not sell well so GW decided that it would be best to scrap the entire setting and sell off IP rights to video game companies. At the same time they are still writing stories in the Old World and publishing material for it**_

 _ **On the other hand, both the Asur and the Dawi have never straight up abandoned their alliance with the humans of the Empire and switched over to the other side like Quel'Thalas did at the end of the second war and during the events of TBC.**_

 _ **Also the third legion invasion has the factions take a backseat and let the PC led class halls lead the way to victory because the united faction attack fails due to the distrust you mentioned is endemic to warhammer.**_

 ** _Man you really live up to your name. I quite enjoy reading your reviews and in retrospect it has helped me become a more multifaceted storyteller as far as this story is concerned._**

 ** _CaptnDetergent, I will take that into advice and start writing less complex sentences. As you can tell English is not my first language so occasional booboos are bound to happen. When I say unique look that Luigi has, it means that he stands out from everyone else around him. The guy looks even more like a prince when he is dressed up in alliance plate and has an uncanny resemblance to Arthas. Guess what is going to happen when Varian Wrynn sees him in that get up, lol._**

 ** _Serrae, Of course. She is the only bright spot in the BFA alliance story so far._**

 ** _TLau18, Probably because it is a large crossover fanfic being written by a newbie author and half the crossover material is from a universe that canonically no longer exists and is significantly less popular than it's big pauldroned little brother._** ****


	47. Chapter 47

**The Aftermath of Victory**

* * *

It was a bittersweet pleasure watching the sun move westward. In the midst of a fully pitched battle, no one knew if they would see it rise again. It felt like bidding farewell to a friend. Hans batted aside the Orc's attack with ease. After all, he had good men watching over his flanks. The creature grew infuriated at his perceived taunt and rushed ahead to get within the reach of his halberd. For this heroic effort, it was rewarded with a stab on it's right shoulder and recoiled instinctively. What his sergeant had said so many years ago remained true. Instinct would always rule their foes' minds, whether they be the savage norscans or bloodthirsty orcs.

This orc in question was well armored and equipped. A big hunk of metal decorated in the insignia of the Horde made up it's shield and the elaborate helmet it wore told him that this was a leader of some sorts. Another orc, younger perhaps and certainly smaller made to rush in the gap he was created. It was fast enough to dodge the first two parries and made his way into hans' guard, axe raised for a blow that would split his head in two. It was cut down by the second row of halberds, axe inches away from Hans' face. He couldn't help but flash a grin at the orc leader. A taunt as much as a smile of relief.

The orc roared something in it's barbarous tongue and started to charge with another cohort of it's kind. Then all of them, emblems, banners and all exploded in a red mist. Hans had gotten used to the sounds of cannonfire around their positions, that he had forgotten they were supporting his position. The men whooped and cheered as they welcomed the respite. Hans gave them a few deserved minutes of rest before ordering them to march to a viable location. After all, a battle line was only as strong as it's weakest links. Looking behind he saw the cannons reloading after another bombardment on the orc lines.

Until now Hans had never thought Erich as a captain of the artillery. The cannons he kept were too expensive to be fired consistently and were mostly used to bully unruly peasants. It came as a pleasant surprise that the man had actually been modest when it came to his cannon directing talents. Erich was just as good as any man in Todbringer's own artillery train when it came to directing guns.

With every volley of cannonfire, the largest mass of orcs would be shredded. Scores of the greenskins died every time the guns fired. Their sounds would temporarily drown out the loudest of screams and stun everyone not directly caught in the blast. Them skipping across the orcish lines was also lent to their destruction, as the careening balls would sow destruction in their wake. Between the cannonfire across their lines and the blistering volleys of lead being poured down their ranks, it was somewhat of a small miracle that the orcs were still attacking.

The implication was alarming. Hans' good mood evaporated. They would begin to run out of shot and powder soon. The only thing keeping them alive so far was their deft manoeuvring and the bestial savagery of the Worgen. Hans' fascination with the wolfmen had cooled down significantly after spending some time with them. They had none of the nobility or dignity that Ulric's blessed children should innately possess. In fact, they were cruder than their Gilnean kin who called them cursed. As a Middenlander and soldier, Hans understood the enjoyment of good drink and cheer as much as the next person, but their half feral state didn't seem to carry over to their human state. Powerful warriors. Terrible soldiers.

But in the flanks where their lines would be exposed, they shone. Hans had seen them shred through the orcs. Each worgen was stronger than perhaps the strongest greenskin among the enemies' ranks. Add to the fact that they were supported by fire from disciplined regiments, they were a terror amongst the orc ranks. For the last hour, their sight alone was enough to test the resolve of any orc near them. Still, it was a matter of time before they would have to contend with the orcs fully in melee. Desperation and gun butts against green muscle and savagery. It was a surprisingly bleak perspective. A younger man would have balked in despair. Not him. He had seen the horrors of the Dark Gods under a clouded sky, and had come out the stronger for it. If Ulric would claim him from Morr's halls, it would be over a pile of orc dead.

The regiment being hit the hardest right now was the main body of the mercenaries. Luigi had been doing a decent job of keeping the men together in order, and often fighting on the front lines. Erich would doubtless have objected, but he was far away. The banner still flowed high and that was all that mattered. They had thrown back another assault, and Hans winced as he saw the line tighten. Several more were dead or otherwise in no condition to fight were dragged behind the lines to safety. Not all of them would see the next morning. The pounding war drums sounded another assault and the grim line of soldiers

"Stand together brothers and comrades. Brace your pikes and square your shoulders. We are the Free men of Tilea. The Goddess watches, and we shall make her proud this day!" The shouting from the line was deafening. Luigi was pleasant, attractive and had the captain's eye. He had all the makings of a fine leader, and this was his moment to shine. And shine he did. In Alliance Plate and long mane flowing he looked like a man out the mythical past of the Empire fighting in the present day.

The orc line charged head first into the raised pikes and the first ranks were skewered on to them. The line devolved into a chaotic and scattered melee as men and orc desperately tried to kill each other in a brawl in which the former were at a disadvantage. Iron discipline and morale were the only things that would keep the line in stable. That and a champion.

It was a joy to watch luigi fight with a sword and a shield. Catching blows and slashing at the orcs who dared to come close to him, the man was a silver blur on the battlefield. Around him the men rallied and regained their composure. The line solidified and the men pushed back the orc assault. A volley of fire from the Tilean gunners tore into the line of orcs that were pushed back in this manner. They would reform and weather another assault until they were dead, or the orcs were.

But the young man was having none of it. "This is the moment of our glory lads. Now we take the fight to the foe. Follow my lead, and forward onto victory! Myrmidia et Tilea!"

Alarmingly, the order to charge invigorated the line, and they began to march forward at a steady pace shouting their goddesses' name. Hans looked at Erich's position in alarm and the advancing pikemen once again. The captain would be pissed if his golden haired underling killed off his command.

"What do we do sergeant?" One man asked.

Hans gritted his teeth. If he stayed the command would be killed. If he marched ahead then he would certainly join the tileans in being overrun by the orcs. He took a deep breath, and took a decision that would later blossom into something unforseen. "I promised we would have orcs to chop up, and the damn southlanders are taking them all. Would you proud Ulricans let those Tileans and their slip of a goddess take all the glory for themselves?"

"Ulric! War and Winter!" His men shouted.

"Then follow me, for we march for Ulric, and we march for war!"

After a few minutes of marching, Hans turned around and saw that the entirety of the force was rushing ahead. They had doubtless thought that it was something Erich had planned. With all of them together, they might be able to break the front lines of the orcs attacking them.

As they descended, Tilean, Middenlander, Gilnean, Scarlet and Alterac cut down any orc that got in their way. The orcs were determined and many a man went down to the blade of dying greenskins and was trampled by the advance. Bit by bit, the stiff resistance of the orcish line began to break. It was subtle at first. Their attacks and blows felt lighter and easily parried. Then a few of the orcs near the front started to pull back and ran into their own fighters. The line wavered for a moment and the world seemed to stand still.

Once more, it was Luigi that led the charge. "Remember the banners at Monte Castello. Remember Solland! Make them fear those names brothers, One final push and we shall be victorious!"

The words had an electrifying effect. The men's fatigue vanished completely for a precious few moments, and they laid into the orcs with a viciousness that tipped the scales. The orc lines shattered completely and they pushed and jostled each other to get away from the advancing garrison. Dozens of them were hacked apart by the frenzied defenders. No one took any chances with the was only when they had nearly reached the ruined lower sections of the city that they realised why the orcs had been routed.

The harbour hosted a giant ship that towered over the Horde Vessels blockading the fortress earlier in the day. The men of the Eastern Kingdoms cheered and hugged each other when they saw the sails. Alliance colours fluttered proudly in the breeze and the docks were full of plate clad men rushing ahead to join the battle. At their head, a long haired man, who towered over everyone else charged while wielding two blades. "It is the High King! Its Varian Wrynn at the head of the vanguard!" Several voices shouted with excitement. It would seem that they had been graced with the presence of royalty.

Someone tugged at Hans' sleeve. To his surprise, it was Luigi. Now he looked like the young man always in Erich's shadow with a befuddled look on his face. "What do we do now?" He asked.

Hans shrugged. "Why are you asking me? Who cares? We won! We should be celebrating!"

"But there is a king. He is going to be making his way here, as soon as he grows bored of chopping up fleeing orcs. Besides, you fought alongside the Emperor correct? He is greater than a King."

Hans couldn't help but smack his forehead. Someone next to him laughed out of sheer relief that the battle was truly and finally over. He turned back to Luigi. "I fought on the same battlefield as Karl Franz. It doesn't mean I know him. There were tens of thousands of us at Middenheim, and the most I saw of the Emperor was on Deathclaw. What an absurd question."

The boy's face fell. "Well, what do we do now?"

"Ask Erich I suppose."

* * *

Erich swayed unsteadily, struggling to stay awake. It spoke volumes of his tired state that he could manage to close his eyes and doze off for moments. A field triage camp was a terrifying place to be at the best of times and this counted as one of them. With an effort that bordered on the supernatural, he got up from his chair and begun to walk through the tents where his men and women lay.

In each tent, people lay dying noisily. The floors were filled with blood and other viscera, and he had to take care lest he slip and land on someone else. Groans of the wounded, death rattles of the mortally injured and cries of friends made the atmosphere morbid. By far the most of the wounded were from the Alliance forces that had broken the blockade and landed troops, causing the orcs to retreat. The boy had been foolish, but so incredibly brave. On any other occasion, his charge would have faltered and they would have been cut down by the orcs without the cover of the well placed artillery. The gods had saved them. The gods had saved him.

This sort of insignificance was too much to bear. As if to rebel against fate – no matter how trivial the action may be – Erich got up and staggered out of the tent. He regretted it almost immediately. The cacophony of people running around in cloth robes, casting healing spells and shouting for supplies was too much for him to bear. His head was on fire and he heaved and tried vomiting just to clear the bile from his throat. Nothing came up but spittle. He hadn't eaten in a day and was too tired to make the effort.

In this daze he managed to stumble into another tent. This one was worse than the last. The more gruesome injuries had been shifted here. Limbless and disembowelled men and women shuffled into their pallets and listlessly waited to die. Morr had claimed this tent, and Erich knew that he should be here with the dying.

He walked by them slowly, looking at their faces, and whispering prayers and apologies. Most of them were too far gone to even acknowledge his presence. Several were already dead, their chests stilled. A few wept or smiled, while the rest stared at him sullenly. His professors had taught him the numbers behind warfare, but his father had taught him what the aftermath of a battle was. When Erich was younger, he had railed against the older Von Peiper's teachings, but now he knew them as the cold truth. The threads of their lives might have been cut short by the gods, but it was he who held the shears.

"Capitan. Are you there?" A half familiar voice called out from the gloom. Erich looked around to see who had called him. Someone squirmed in their pallet and a hand was raised with difficulty near the other end of the tent.

Erich walked over there and stood for a moment staring at the man who had asked for him. It was the veteran Tilean he had shared a few words with during the battle. His ruddy face was now ashen from the loss of blood, and his torso had been covered with bandages. "How bad is it?"

"They say that I will not see the sun set." The man replied, voice barely above a whisper.

Erich knelt down. "Apothecaries, what do they know?" He answered flippantly.

The man burst out laughing, which turned into a fit of bloody coughing. Erich noted the blood spread on the bandages. He hovered at the gates of Morr's hall. Another laughing fit and he would be through. The apothecaries were right about him.

"Some water." The man pleaded. Erich filled a mug with water and brought it to him. Cradling the man's head in his lap, he slowly poured the water so as to not make him choke. There was a sense of intimacy and tenderness in that action that Erich had long buried deep inside. The cold and calculating soldier of fortune faded, and the precocious child rose in it's place.

"Capitan, can I ask for a last wish?" The man gasped.

"What is it?"

"I want to see the sun and feel the breeze before I am gone." The man wheezed and coughed up some more blood, before continuing. "I don't want to die in a tent that reminds me of the sewers below Miragliano."

Erich simply nodded, and helped the man up. His body was limp, and barely had the strength to stand on his own. He would need to be carried out. Hoisting an arm over his shoulder, Erich helped him out of the tent and into the blinding sunlight outside. The man gasped but otherwise made no protest. For his part, Erich had to admit, it felt wonderful to be out of the tent.

The winds brought to them the refreshing salty smell of the ocean, and the light made everything seem clearer. Even the wounded Tilean managed to break into a smile. Erich stared at the man. Away from the lantern light, his face was now exceedingly pale. The amount of blood he had lost meant that the man was truly beyond saving. "Where do you want to go?"

He pointed towards an outcrop at a distance. Erich began to walk with him, slowly and steadily. His body, tired after the strains of battle and little rest was not doing much better. There was the taste of bile in his throat and if he had eaten something he would have thrown up. The next few days were going to be hell.

The man needed help even to sit down. Erich gingerly placed him down near the edge and sat down next to him. He had chosen well. The place offered a view of the entire harbour and the lower fortress. On a personal level, Erich had to marvel at the change that had taken over the place.

Hundreds of soldiers now patrolled the cleared streets of the fortress, their plated forms glinting in the sunlight. Teams of dwarfs, men and elves worked together to rebuild the ruined structures and repair the walls. The blue banners with the lion's head hung above nearly every building with a tall roof. He turned to look at the man. The Tilean was crying silently with a smile on his face.

"What's wrong?"

"Never thought I would hear it again." His voice was getting shallower as he grasped Erich wildly. "Sounds of a town. I can die content now."

Erich propped him up. "You are going to grow old listening to those sounds." A blatant lie. The man himself had seemingly made his peace. There was no need to lie, but yet...

For his part, the man laughed again, coughing up a mouthful of blood. When he spoke again, his voice quavered. "Capitan, you are from the Empire are you not?"

"From old Solland, yes."

"I came from a small hamlet on the road between Parravon and Luccini." The man sighed.

"Tell me about it."

"Nothing to say. One day a gang of bandits burned our fields and beastmen killed those who remained. My family were all dead, so I joined the first people who needed a warm body."

"Do you have any regrets."

The man sniffed before continuing, his voice scarcely above a whisper. "I came from the dirt of Tilea. I saw the wonders of the wide world, from elven forests to Dwarf mountain cities, fell in love so many times that I lost count, drank a lot and mourned many a slain friend. I go to Morr's halls with my head high and shoulders stiff."

Erich was silent for a moment. He had not expected this level of introspection from a mercenary. The man had killed for coin, first under Valdoz' command and then his. Yet at the end of his short and bloody life, he had achieved a peace that Erich knew he would never get.

"What...about...you?" He was now struggling to breathe. Each word was an effort, and Erich could hear the panting.

"More of the same really. I came from a small town where the wool sellers were the biggest men in my world. I travelled the wide world, fought in the company of brave and true men, and saw sights that many never get to see. Ranald and Shallya have been kind to me."

"Re...grets?" The man looked at him serenely now, his dark eyes filled with the wisdom of the dying.

Erich suddenly felt a tightness in his chest. "Some days, I wish I had listened to my old man and stayed at home." Another lie. The armed camp was his home now. Sleeping in bed made him uncomfortable now, and his pistol was loaded and within reach.

"Any..thing...else?"

It was getting harder to lie now. "I wish I could sleep without dreaming." Erich woke up shaking at night sometimes, during the lull between contracts. A man of action, it was the peace that scared him now. Part of him knew the simple and awful truth. He was devoted to the art of war. The dream of restoring solland had long faded away, and the only time he felt truly calm was in the midst of a battle, with his senses stretched to their limits. For all his profession to Myrmidia, he knew that he had failed. War was no longer a means to an end for him – but an end onto itself. Left alone with his thoughts, Erich now saw the awful monster he had become over the years, and it chilled him.

With a last burst of strength, the man leaning on his shoulder said "Mamma, papa, I am home." Then he was completely limp. Erich saw the last breath escape the man's lips. Perhaps it was the sorrow that could not be contained and was leaking through his eyes – but Erich swore he saw the man's soul – a hearty Tilean man, face unscarred and a slight smile playing upon his lips – stand up and look at him before it disappeared.

"Och lad, you alright?" A voice speaking common chirped up. A matronly dwarf in white robes asked was walking towards him. Valayan priestess – no doubt.

"Yes, he is well." He said, and picked up the body.

Erich hadn't even asked the Tilean's name. Perhaps it would help him forget the faces in his dreams. Then again, it never did.

* * *

Caledra held her head high while walking at the head of the small procession. She was just a few steps away from royalty. Short lived royalty, but royalty nonetheless. Her job was to translate for King Varian Wrynn. Even now the tall human walked behind her, his footsteps heavier than the plate clad Stormwind Royal Guard. Accompanying him were Lady Proudmoore and Vereesa Windrunner. The latter had been the first to welcome the king into the newly liberated fortress. For her part, Caledra still felt queasy looking at Jaina Proudmoore. The young human's eyes were filled with a quiet sort of rage, reminiscent of a mother hawkstrider whose eggs had been stolen. From the few whispers she had picked up, it would seem that the Ruler of Theramore had paid the Horde back for the loss of her people. The entire armada Garrosh Hellscream had built up was at the bottom of the Great ocean.

The 7th legion strike force had been effective. The path ahead of them had been cleared of any Horde forces that remained, with only blood splatters remaining. The soldiers saluted as the High King of the Alliance passed by them. For his part, the king was burrowed in a deep conversation with Jaina, Vereesa and a man dressed in the accoutrements of Alliance commanders. A spell designed to keep away prying ears stopped her for listening.

The rest of the day had been busy. Engineers and sailors were busy repairing some of the bigger breaches in the walls and clearing debris from the two horde assaults. A new roof was going over the ruins of the barracks and overseers shouted at their underlings to rush important tasks. The sounds of rebuilding rivalled the din of battle.

They reached the ramp and were greeted with an ascending path of the Horde dead. It would seem that the mercenaries had held them off at the top of the ascending pathway and the Strike force had hit their rear. It had been a slaughter. In contrast to the dozens of 7th Legion infantrymen assembled at the bottom, the top simply had a single mercenary sitting down with a rifle in his hands. As the climbed up, Caledra noticed the man stand up and yawn before making a sign at those behind him.

In contrast to the scrubbed battlefield below, the top seemed like a charnel house. Dead orcs, goblins, forsaken and the occasional blood elf had been cut down mercilessly and in droves. Bodies lay clumped in different places, and even from this distance, Caledra could make out the cannon barrages from the way the corpses had been smashed into bloody chunks.

"Ranger General. These mercenaries held off the besiegers here?" King Varian asked Vereesa.

"Yes, Your Highness. The Grand Captain had us lay in ambush for their Demolishers."

Caledra smiled slightly as she heard that. The spell had faltered, and the mercenaries were being appreciated for their work. She had grown fond of them over time. A riotous lot, out of battle. Incredibly disciplined and effective in them.

The palisade had been opened, and hundreds of men and women were milling about. The Men from the Eastern Kingdoms froze when they saw the royal banners of stormwind. Several of them went down to one knee, but the remnants of the Scarlet crusade stared at them coldly. Nominally they had been allies when Varian Wrynn had been missing, but the madness of the crusade had driven the Alliance to cut all ties with them. For his part, Varian stared at them with harder eyes than the rest.

"Captain, where are the outlanders?" He asked, tearing his eyes away from the banners.

"Oh, they are encamped further inside. You should -"

The sounds of hundreds of men shouting made her snap her head around. King Varian's hand lept towards the pommel of Shalamayne while Lady Proudmoore's staff glowed with arcane magic. The Royal Guard deployed in front up them with a practiced ease, Within moments a wall of mithril and steel projected outward from their positions. A few of the sentries pulled out their swords with panicked shouting subsided and Caledra's ears heard the sound of men singing. It was a language she didn't know, but it sounded soft to the ears in contrast with the harshness of Reikspiel. The Tilean Sentries sheathed their weapons and started walking inwards.

The singing was sorrowful, almost a lamentation, but interspersed with drums and flutes, as though it rousing marching tune. They saw the tileans gathered at the far end of the camp, beyond the Keep. The singing rose into a chorus and Caledra saw dozens of figures from the alliance camp gather, curious as to what was happening. All except one older dwarf. He simply rested his blunderbuss and ran his stubby fingers through his hair and unkempt beard.

"Was happenin' pa?" Another dwarf, with dark hair and plaited beard asked.

"Can't ye see lad? They are mournin' their dead."

After a few moments the song stopped and an awed hush settled around the gathered crowd. Caledra had to admit, the voice was sweet and heavy. She almost felt wistful that the song had ended. The Tileans began to disperse and most of them passed by her. Most of them gave her a smile and a nod, stopped to look back at Lady Jaina and King Varian and gave the Royal Guard a wild berth. From the myriad dark circles and hunched gait that they possessed, it was clear they were finally done with the siege.

The crowd of tilean mercenaries were thinning when she caught Erich's voice. "... for Butcher's Hill and we will make them pay until they are all dead – or we are." A few bitter chuckles came from the men surrounding him.

"Oh bugger, it's another one of those Alliance banners." Someone else called out.

"Luigi, you are looking resplendent in your plate, handle it." Erich replied without flipping a beat.

"What? after you made me sing the dirge!" So the young human could sing as well.

"Look child. I am covered in soot, and haven't slept properly in days. Now the man with the shiny banners might just have a bonus for saving his pretty fort. Talk to him and be nice. Let me know how that goes. Hans, Littorio, go with him, make sure he doesn't embarrass himself or the good name of our little band. Good luck." The two older men groaned but began trudging towards the Royal Guard, with the younger man between them.

Luigi certainly had the look of a great leader. His golden hair flowed with a life of it's own as he walked towards them. Quite a few women – and a few men - from the Alliance landing force stopped to look at him. He stood out from the mercenaries in his Knight's plate and there was a winning smile on his face that seemed to belong on a painting. He would easily have walked into a royal banquet without anyone questioning his right to be there. It seemed like Luigi was a character out of a steamy romance novel that were all the rage in Stormwind.

Right as the three men were approaching the Royal Guard, Caledra spied a familiar figure standing in the shadow of the Tilean palisade. Erich watched the young man approach the Stormwind Royal guard with a smile on his face, the years seemingly shrinking away. His eyes – grey and hard – had softened watching the scene unfolding before his eyes. The man had wanted Luigi to take his place one day, and this was doubtless part of his grooming. At the last moment, his eyes met Caledra's and he walked inside. She could lay a wager that his face had begun reddening when he turned away from her.

Luigi walked up to the Royal guard and stood at attention. Caledra heard the sound of King Varian breathing in as he took in the young man's view. Vereesa whispered in Thalassian that it was now her turn to introduce the king.

"You stand in the presence of King Varian Wrynn. High King of the Alliance and the King of Stormwind." She announced in Reikspiel.

Hans and Littorio immediately stopped slouching, with the former gripping his Halberd firmly. It would seem that the mercenaries knew something of kings and rulers.

For his part, Luigi stood still as a statue, before replying in nearly perfect Common. "Welcome to Northwatch, your majesty. As the second in command of the Von Peiper Company, allow me to thank you for the heroic victory we have won together this day. This land belongs to the Alliance once more."

* * *

 _ **A/N: And I am back. So sorry for the delay, but Real life does take priority over writing crossover fanfic. Sorry for the rather abrupt ending but there are things being set up that require their own chapter and I would prefer to do it properly. Thank you for the positive comments and support that made me finish this chapter.**_


	48. Chapter 48

**Planning for the Future**

* * *

There was a sense of idyllic peace over the Tilean encampment. Serra walked through the rows of tents, enjoying the results of her handiwork. Humans sat around campfires, drinking, singing and gambling. The air was filled with the appetizing smell of roast meat and salted food. There was plenty of laughter to be had. Every few yards, there were trophies collected from the dead greenskins. A piece of armour. An axe that was nearly as big as the humans that had taken it, a banner or even an occasional Tauren or Orcish head. The words "Blackfire pass" and "Monte Castello" were uttered so often that she feared they would lose all meaning. It had been a great victory – worthy of being written into a prince's history as his greatest deed. And it had been all thanks to her.

To the unwary observer, this battle had been one of brawn and brain. Magic hadn't come into it. They would be right of course, and Serra had worked hard to keep it that way. For all the tactical acumen of Erich Von Peiper and the iron discipline of the mercenaries, this battle would have been their final one. Magic permeated Azeroth in a way that was beyond the wildest dreams of the any human. Any number of Horde spellcasters would have mauled this rag tag force without even launching an arcane bolt at them. Serra had felt the power of their mightiest champions and it was a formidable obstacle to defeat. The only thing the humans had going for them was their artillery and large amounts of bullets.

In a way, the battle of Northwatch Keep had been the greatest test of her skill – perhaps even surpassing the battle at Wyrmrest Temple. There, she had the aid of powerful beings and ancient Old One magics. Here, she only had the knowledge of Asur magecraft. A more headstrong mage would undoubtedly have tried to go head to head with the foes besieging them. Decades of fighting aboard ships during her youth had taught her the value of subtlety. After all, who would check that the hulls their ships were suddenly aging a century in the span of a few minutes.

But subtlety was one thing, the framework under which she had constructed the spell was unconsciously a copy of the greatest of their kind. Even on another world the heritage of the Dragontamer left it's mark. Powerful magics had been unleashed during the destruction of Theramore, and the arcane dissonance of the city's unmaking had given her the power to defeat the mightiest of demons or tools to ensure the victory of the humans.

The subtlety of her craft was exquisite, and Serra would often break into insipid smiles when she recalled the way her magic had affected the environs of the fortress. The elementals of land, air and fire had been cowed by the power of the barrier. Arcane powers fizzled out as the web sapped spellcasters of their magical reserves. Enchantments had been stripped bare and all of them had fed her barrier. Serra dearly hoped that at least one orc had trusted in it's ancient enchanted armour, only to be shot to bits by a volley of lead when her spell had done it's work. Maintaining such a volatile spell had been tiring, but the results were all around here now.

She reached her tent and let out a smile. This place was the closest thing to home and would feel good to finally rest and gather her strength. As she opened the flap, Serra heard two human voices conversing with each other. She would not have cared if she didn't recognize the tone – which promised violence. Against her better judgement, she closed the flap of her tent and started to move towards the voices, which became increasingly audible. Erich and Phillip were arguing over something mundane. She sighed and turned around, peeved that she was even curious over something undoubtedly trivial. Even the two seemed to agree since they had stopped their chatter.

Then she heard Erich's voice. "For a failed priest, you seem to have a very high opinion on what others should or should not do. I wonder what the Arch Lectors would say - "

His voice suddenly changed into a yelp and Serra heard the crack of a fist hitting something soft. The sound of bodies pushing against each other fell on her ears, faint against the wind blowing in from the sea. She doubted if anyone else could hear their commotion. It would be for the best if she kept it discreet.

As she ran towards Erich's tent, the sounds of struggle intensified. A horrible wheezing sound of someone grasping to breathe filled her ears. If she wasn't quick, there would be another dead body interred in the Northwatch graveyard.

The sound of wood hitting bone and a man's snarl greeted Serra as she opened the tent flap. The sound of someone crumpling to the floor. As always Erich's tent was dimly lit and she cast an incantation which sent light streaming from her staff. A pair of heads turned to look at her.

The Sigmarite priest was standing at the center of the tent, naked except for a loincloth. His body had taken to the magic of Azeroth well. It had made him as muscled as a Norscan Huskarl, and the magic he could command had grown exponentially from negligible to very little. There was an aura of golden light about him which her mage sight could sense clearly. His bright blue eyes looked back coldly at her. A single wound on his pate was bleeding freely In another place, she would have been amused at this sight. A hulking ape looking at her with fear and hatred.

But it was Erich who grabbed her attention the most. The man lay on the floor, gasping for breath even as he shielded his eyes away from her staff. His face was ashen, and angry red fingermarks covered his neck. His clothes had been torn and in his hand, he held a pistol like a cudgel, tightly gripping the barrel. The wooden handle was smeared with blood. After a moment his left hand began creeping towards his sword which had been knocked down in the scuffle.

Phillip turned towards Erich as the latter began unsheathing the blade. Serra knew what was was going to happen and cast another spell. A magical barrier separated the two humans. Arcane runes floated lazily around the two of them. Even if they had a mind to break through, they would find it impossible. Arcane shields like these were capable of stopping cannonballs on the high seas – and that was before her power had increased on Azeroth.

"By the gods, what are the two of you doing here half naked?" She asked, carefully trying to keep the contempt out of her voice. The sharp looks that the two men directed at her told that she had failed spectacularly.

"I was stopping the Captain from making a grave error. He threatens the souls of his men with grave blasphemies and sorceries." Phillip's eyes bored into hers – it was clear the human included her in the latter – the irony could not have been more palpable.

Erich's eyes drooped for a moment, sadness writ large on them. Human expressions were too vulgar – too easy to decipher. Then rage overtook him. "Get. Out!" He hissed through his teeth. "We died fighting alongside you when you were a quivering wreck lamenting about how Sigmar had forsaken you. If you turn your back away from us when we need aid, at least slink away into the shadows like the rat you are." He spat at Phillip, only to see it stick to Serra's ward.

Phillip turned around and walked out of the tent. Her shield dispersed as he moved away from Erich, his magic reacting angrily with the remnants of her spell. Serra watched him leave before turning to face Erich who was furiously massaging his throat and trying to get back up. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if he needed help. He took the moment to stand up, using his sword as a cane. She opened her mouth to say something, only to be greeted with him retching and coughing. It was all she could do not to roll her eyes.

After a few moments, Erich managed to stop coughing and wobbled back up and sat down on his chest. His eyes glazed over and he seemed to slip into a fugue state while his mouth struggled to form words. After a few moments he said. "The bigger and darker ones are the most deadly. All the savage strength of the orc and the iron discipline of a dwarf shield wall. We will need cannon or magic to deal with them. Move those two guns to the front and shove every piece of metal smaller than your thumbs inside. Monte Castello has never fallen to their kind and it shall not do so today . Live and be content forever more that you belong in a circle of men and women marked by the gods. Die and stand proud in the Her hall alongside the heroes of old. For Myrmidia, for gold and glory!"

Serra wondered for a moment if being hit on the head had turned Erich into an imbecile. As far humans went, Erich's brusqueness was becoming far less intolerable. His quirks might even be described as a faint echo of charming and the man excelled at leading soldiers from the front. Watching him turn into a squig brained fool would be painful.

Almost immediately he put that fear to rest when he vigorously shook his head and his grey eyes regained their clarity. They met hers and he asked. "Why are you still here?"

"I heard the sound of fighting and came to investigate. Looks like I was right on time too. You were about to have your skull caved in by the Sigmarite." Serra tried to keep the snark out of her voice but with humans it was hard.

"Phillip, his name is Phillip" Erich shook his head a second time and scrambled up before replacing his pistol on his belt.

"So do you mind telling me what happened and why Phillip was strangling you in his loincloths? Is this some Tilean or Imperial custom that I am familiar with?" Serra had cornered Erich – quite literally in fact – and it would be entertaining watching him squirm. The humans might be a prolific kind, but they were remarkably prudish.

Erich smiled for a moment and then replied. "I insulted a priest's faith when we had some theological differences on magic. Nothing much really. It is a good thing that you came when you did. Someone might have gotten hurt." He pulled out his rapier and began to inspect the priest's fingermarks.

Serra huffed and dispelled her barrier. If Erich didn't put much stock in nearly being choked to death then it really wasn't her place to mother him. Next time she would not be so curious. As she turned to leave, Erich suddenly said something that made her ears prick up.

"It is good that you are here. I need your advice Serra." There was a sense of worry in his voice that hadn't been there moments before

"What is it?"

"I haven't been able to sleep for days on end. I was spent an entire day fighting in a brutal battle and directing cannon fire. By all accounts, I should have collapsed by the time the battle was over. Yet here I am, just as alert as I was when the battle started."

"It is just your body running on it's last reserves human. Give it a few more moments and you will collapse all the same." Serra knew that this part was a lie. Human resilience did not go so far.

Apparently so did Erich. He played his final trump card. "A year ago, if Brother Phillip had deigned to choke me with the strength he had done so today, he would have crushed my throat in an instant. Now, look at me."

Serra turned to look at Erich. The bruises that should have been on his neck were gone, his skin unblemished. "What do you want human?"

"What is this place doing to me? Doing to my men?" There wasn't any sort of threat in his voice, merely concern.

Serra sighed. "You are adapting to this world. As am I." She wondered if the humans could ever comprehend the subtle ways their bodies were changing in the nourishing environment of Azeroth.

Erich scratched his head and looked puzzled. "The people here, the men and women from the eastern kingdoms must already have adopted to this place for generations, yet they are spent from this day's labours."

Serra rolled her eyes reflexively. She was about to retort angrily when better sense prevailed. Goading Erich would be pointless at this juncture. The human was brutally honest with her, and it would be the best to do likewise.

"What do you know about magic Erich?" Hoeth grant her fortitude, Serra would explain what was happening to him right here and right now.

Erich scratched his chin and sheathed his sword. "I know that wizards of the Empire cast different colours of magic. It is forbidden to cast different schools because they say it corrupts the soul. I know that the magic itself is like the wind, and only those with magical acumen can feel it." His voice fell. "For the rest of us, it is akin to a deaf man being told about music."

Serra sighed and leaned against the wall. The High Loremaster had taught the basics of magics to humans, so that they would not blow themselves up – taking the rest of the world with them. In a few short centuries, the humans had managed to mangle the simple concepts of the aethyric winds and felt proud of their misinformation.

This would be a long explanation. There was no way Serra could go through with this unless...

She gestured to the table. "Have a seat. This will take a while."

* * *

Erich began to arrange the chairs. Serra snapped her fingers and the room righted itself almost instantly. A bottle of rum floated towards the table, accompanied by a pair of small cups. The cups landed in front of the chairs he had put up and the drink began to pour itself. He watched it with his mouth agape while he stood. Meanwhile Serra sat down on the chair he had so graciously pulled for her. When Erich didn't touch his cup, Serra took a sip from hers to show him how harmless it was, no different from pouring the drink herself. She saw recognition dawn in his eyes and he drained it in one gulp. Serra refilled his drink while he grinned like a child seeing his first magical spell.

"Shall we begin?"

At this moment the most that Hans wanted was to crawl into his tent with a belly full of beer and sleep until the next day. The battle had taken a lot out of him, and his armour – dwarf forged he thought proudly – was now hanging heavily over his shoulders. On any other day, he would carefully spend an hour cleaning and polishing the thing because of what it meant to him. Now, even thinking about that revered task made him groan. Worse, it was audible. Almost immediately, every face in the room turned towards him. If he had been younger, he would have turned as red as an apple. He was in the same room as an Emperor and a queen for Ulric's sake! But now he could barely even care.

"Hans, are you well?"

Luigi had shifted from his seat to crane his neck back and look at him, his bright green eyes full of concern. It was amusing how good the boy was in taking care of his looks. They had both fought for the entire battle almost side by side. Erich would be furious if something happened to this young ward. He had also marched out of the fortress and back with the elves. In the few minutes that they had to prepare for the arrival of royalty, Luigi von Pavona had gone from a tired young squire to a princeling. If any person were to see the young man dressed in full plate and dark brown cape, they would think he belonged among the people seated opposite to him. Catamite or not, the boy had proved his mettle a hundred times over today, and Hans would gladly fight alongside the youth once more.

"One of my straps is loose." He replied in Tilean. The elf captain didn't know that language.

"You need help adjusting it?" He offered without thinking, breaking the role of acting head of the mercenary company. There was a charm to his earnestness.

Hans shook his head. "I have been killing orcs all day with my strap loose. I can stand around for a few more minutes while you finish up. Besides Littorio is worse than I am."

The older man was fighting to look alert. Of course, he had done much of the actual brainwork on what they were about to sign. Hans didn't understand much about the details of the contracts. That was something for burghers and nobles to wrestle over. Fighting was his forte.

Instead he had spent much of his time observing the Alliance leaders in the room. It would have been quite illuminating if Hans ever had the inkling or the capacity for bothering with anything aristocrats did. These ones were different.

The High King gave off the aura of formidable warrior. The plate armour he wore was massive and he must have been powerful indeed to move in that armour, much less fight. His face had been scarred from several blows and the way he carried himself reminded Hans irresistibly of a wolf patriarch on the hunt. There was a certain wolfishness in his blue eyes and the way his hand would shift towards his curious sword told Hans that this Varian Wrynn would make mincemeat of any Black Orc or Norscan champion seeking to claim his skull. The man might not be a Karl Franz, but he certainly had the body language that came from expecting fealty and would inspire loyalty to the point of death.

The white haired sorceress was the most beautiful woman Hans had ever seen with his eyes. At any other times he would have enjoyed the rather free dress she wore, but Hans now felt petrified whenever she turned those eyes to look at him. Witches and sorcerers were to be feared and shunned, no matter how harmless or alluring they looked. There was also an air of suppressed rage around her that sent a shiver down his spine. Jaina Proudmoore could vaporize him in an instant and there was nothing he could do. It was a terrifying thought and Hans looked forward to drowning it with as much rum he could stomach.

Luckily for him, they had not paid much attention to him at all. The woman had cast a few stray glances away from Luigi from time to time and when Hans' eyes met hers, he would quickly look away lest he catch some stray curse. Varian Wrynn was a far more sporting.

At some time during the negotiation something about trophy rights had come up. Hans was already half drifting to sleep when Luigi's voice had been raised a tad. Hans had noticed that and snapped out of the daze he was in, When Varian Wrynn had slammed his palm on the table, Hans had readied his halberd by pure instinct. The king's guards were a moment too late in unsheathing their swords. With a casual grace that was as irresistible as it was charming, Varian had bid his men to sheathe their swords and shot an amused wink to the Middenlander thus defusing the tension in the room. The rest of the negotiations had proceeded rather amiably.

Hans had noticed one more thing. Whenever Luigi would turn to consult with Littorio, the two of them would stare intently at the young man as though they recognized him from somewhere. When Luigi asked Hans about his armour, he played a little bit with his hair and grinned. The King's eyes bulged slightly while the sorceress raised a hand to her mouth. It looked like they had seen an apparition. Clearly there was a mystery here. It was just that Hans could not be bothered to care. He was tired and standing at attention with a halberd was getting tiring.

Just as Hans thought that he would collapse, Luigi finally nodded his assent. The sorceress cast a spell and a small cloud of purple smoke appeared in front of him. When it was gone, there was a decorated piece of parchment with the symbol of the Alliance on top of it. Luigi took a quill and scratched out something at the bottom with a flourish. Their business done, he then shook hands with the king and the sorceress.

The next thing Hans remembered was waking up with a welp as a blast of cold water hit him. Luigi was standing over him with a bucket of water while Caledra peeked in through the door.

"Is he alright?" She asked.

"He just dozed off. He will be all better once he gets something to drink." Littorio replied while he rearranged the chairs.

"Where am I?"

"Still in the tower." Luigi replied extending a hand to help him up. Hans took it and scrambled up. He continued, "You collapsed a few moments after we signed the contract."

"Huh, what happened?"

Littorio interjected. "We formalised our employment with the Alliance and have been given certain rights that other military guilds have been given. Also we have the right to take trophies from our kills. Luigi wants to lead a party outside and scrounge up some loot and something to decorate our banners."

Hans nodded. "Good, good. They wanted to take our spoils?" He asked looking at Luigi. That was extremely rude, not to mention a little dangerous. Brawls were known to erupt in the aftermath of battles when different mercenary companies would claim the same trinket – often with fatal consequences.

"I don't think they cared much about the shinies. It's the ears, teeth and heads they had a problem with." Luigi rolled his eyes. "Apparently they think it is barbaric to desecrate the corpses of their foes." Hans couldn't help but burst out laughing.

"They would do worse to us." He replied. The last vestiges of sleep were gone from his mind and he suddenly felt spry as ever.

Littorio added. "Well, that's done. I will break the news to Erich. I suppose we will all be heading off to bed then."

Luigi smiled sadly and shook his head. He looked like a painting come to life in the dim torchlight of the braziers. His hair was a fount of molten gold running down his head. His eyes gleamed like emeralds and his nose seemed sculpted from a master craftsman's chisel. There was something soft and feminine about him that this dim light brought out. A man that would in time inspire passion and loyalty from his natural charisma alone. He spoke and the high lilting tone of his voice added to the allure. "This is my first command and I survived with all my limbs intact." He grinned mischievously. "I am going to drink and sing with the rest of the boys until I collapse. You want in Middenlander?"

Hans couldn't help but grin in turn while nodding. After the events of the day, there was nothing like losing yourself in drink and waking up the next day with the cares of the wider world drowned in the sweet taste of rum.

* * *

Erich realized that his cup had been empty for a while. On any other day, he would have reached for the bottle in the middle of the table to take another swig. Today of course was different. After a few moments he considered what the elf had just told him, and burst out laughing.

Serra raised and eyebrow and the corners of her lips twisted a bit. Coming from an elf, it was worth more than a torrent of insults directed at him.

"I am sorry. Bursting into laughter was not my intention. It is just all too much to take in at once." He shrugged defensively.

Her eyes widened ever so slightly. If he had to wager a drink, Erich would bet on genuine surprise. "Do tell, I did try to keep my explanation as simple as I could. If you would like I can go over some of the finer points." It wasn't a jest. She would really start her spiel about the nature of magic with no idea about how mind boggling it was.

"No, I think I got the gist. It is..." He paused for a moment, trying to frame this new knowledge that his mind was digesting even now against what he had been told all his life. It felt awkward, as if he had guessed the exceptionally silly answer to an ancient riddle. That was all there to the terrible knowledge of the arcane that got people hunted down like mad dogs?

"Surprisingly mundane is it not?" She smiled slowly at him. Erich's heart leapt in his chest reflexively. Between her dishevelled hair, tired but still patient voice and the way the robes clung to her breasts, Serra was ravishingly beautiful in a way that would have turned any noblewoman green with envy.

"Yes, it turns out there isn't that much magical about magic after all." He grinned for a moment. Then, irresistibly he remembered what this meant.

Faces from the depths of his memory came back to assault him of the thing he had always suspected but had ignored. Young or old, men or women, they looked at him with dagger-like stares. He could have done something. He should have done something. As once, they opened their mouths and he bowed his head, mutely ready for their jeers and insult. instead his ears filled with the sounds of their death rattles and screams of children watching their mothers be burned alive. The smell of burning cloth, flesh and hair invaded his nose. It was all too much. He got up and tried to run away from the vision assaulting him. His legs wobbled as those apparitions flew towards him with with a fury of retribution and pinned him in place. Something began to burn up inside him and his hands were bound with rope. His stomach roiled with an infernal flame that sped along his chest and throat. Then everything turned black.

When his eyes opened, he was lying face down on the floor, a hair's breadth of a noxious concoction of his bile and rum. Erich got up and snorted.

Serra had gotten up, looking at him with a mixture of bemusement and horror. "Erich, are you well?"

He nodded. "I had too little to eat, too much to drink and too much to think." His head spun wildly. Tomorrow would be worse, even without his nightmares. He supposed it was good luck that his mind had finally buckled after the battle and not before or – Gods forbid – during it.

Serra simply shrugged and waved her staff. His vomit began to disappear "Well? What were you thinking?" She asked somewhat annoyed.

"That if you had told the same to Brother Phillip, my head would not be hurting as badly now." He clutched his head reflexively as the drums pounded incessantly in the confines of his skull.

She rolled her eyes. "Is that all?"

Erich wondered how much he should tell the elf. She was valuable enough and following her had kept Erich and his men well employed. At the same time some things were never meant to be shared. Would elves even feel the same way about the loss of human lives? He knew the answer to that one already. Perhaps there was a difference between a Dragon Lord and a mage.

"There is one more thing." Erich took a deep breath. "This place – Azeroth – is far more stable when it comes to magic. Then there would be no difference between a poultice and magecraft when it comes to healing the wounded and sick. Am I correct?"

"Yes. You personally have changed quite a bit here. Your body responds rather well to magic in answer to your query. At Alterac, you broke half the bones in your body and recovered in time to march into the city. Did you sprout tentacles from your backside or horns on your skull? That is the answer you shall get."

"And the others?"

"The priest has found his faith and more. The power which he strived for all his life has been given to him and for the first time he can walk on the path he always dreamed of." Serra replied.

Erich snorted once more – this time with derision. "And like every pious fool he dithers when the time comes to put his powers for the good of others."

Serra threw him another sultry and altogether withering look before continuing, "Your ward has changed as well. He wears heavy plate like a dancer's dress. People cheer and look up to him in a way they never will look at you."

Erich ruminated over the last point. Luigi had a sense of wonder and joy about him that had always gone well with his face. He was naturally charismatic in a way that could never be taught to someone. If Erich's bullheaded determination could turn into his body healing faster and better than before, then it stood to reason that Luigi would take on the bearings of a prince.

"You still haven't told me what you were thinking Erich." Serra replied.

"It has always been me and my boys against the world. Each man killed or maimed has felt like losing a brother. I am sick and tired of telling our number about honour and glory. " He picked up a coin from his pouch and twirled it around his fingers. "To the rest of the world, this is what we are. A price for a blade." Grasping the coin tightly he placed it back alongside the rest.

He dragged out another chest, filled with gold that he had hoped would buy back his ancestral lands. The dream had died alongside the young man who had been terrified of the monsters that lurked in the depths of the wilds He was different now, a monster no less than the greenskins and beastmen who bayed for the blood of men. "If our souls and minds are in no danger from magic in Azeroth, then we shall revel in it. It is time to bolster my mercenary band with fresh blood."

* * *

 _ **A/N: Well here it is, another chapter. After rereading my own fic and punching myself for making silly mistakes alongside reading the plethora of reviews both here and on spacebattles, I realize that I have seemingly shortchanged the warcraft universe by quite a bit. For the purposes of this story, I had planned to keep power levels in the background while writing from the perspective of grizzled warhammer characters travelling through Azeroth and the culture shock that would happen where two somewhat similar fantasy universes collide. The plan is to correct the imbalance from here on out while continuing to point out the details that I think a Tilean dog of war leader would find odd in Azeroth. As the war between the Alliance and the Horde kicks into even higher gear and paints the continent of pandaria red, my characters will find themselves right in the middle of it.  
As an aside, it would be really helpful if people pointed me to the right direction as to where the supply chain of both the playable warcraft factions. I can understand Ironforge being a major industrial center but it is hard to understand where the horde equivalent would be from. Once again, I apologize to anyone who may have taken umbrage to my admittedly blatant favouritism or general grammatical inconsistencies.**_

 _ **Also a big thanks to Old Timey Dude and Srosnan99 for catching a couple of name errors. A shameful display on my end.**_


	49. Chapter 49

**Sailing downhill**

* * *

Waking from a fitful night's sleep Talaena's ears picked up the sound of leather slippers running down the street. Normally she would have ignored it but there was something odd It was the dead of the night and the town guard wore Alliance Plate. For a moment she considered diving under her coverlets and fall asleep, but the feeling of heightened tension remained. Her hands reached for her daggers as the sounds of footsteps grew louder. By the time the intruders had knocked on her door, she was ready to challenge them. She cocked her head to a side and listened intently. If there were too many she could still reach for her belt – and the bombs within.

There were at least half a dozen of them – and heavily armed too if the sounds of swords being drawn from scabbards were to go by. Deftly, Talaena put on her belt and grabbed her knives, all the while tiptoeing towards the window. As the window opened the cold air of the Alterac mountains howled about her and she couldn't help but shiver. This night was colder than most and the wind carried upon it the whispers of far away Icecrown Citadel. Something foul was afoot, and it was coming straight for Talaena Dawnbreeze.

Her intuition won out. As she sprung for the manse's walls barefoot from the window, the sound of the door being pushed off it's hinges and crashing heralded the intrusion into her quarters. For a moment that seemed infinitely long, she was in midair, the sounds of explosions went off in her room. A shout – in orcish – told her that the Horde had found her, and that she had only escaped by the skin of her teeth. Then the moment passed and she found herself scrambling over the walls of her quarters and rolling along the length of the street.

Her heart was pounding and her daggers were in her hand. Scanning the street with her eyes, she found no trace of anybody hostile – actually there was no one on the street at all. Even as she ran, Talaena found that odd. This was the richer part of Alterac city and there would be guards posted at all times. Something was definitely wrong.

Without thinking, she began to sprint half towards her workshop, with little more than her belt and daggers. It was only accessible to two people – her and Sven. The latter was an outlander from the eastern seas and would keep his nose out of any strange business. It also held some extra clothes that she could use now. Approaching the corner of a winding street, she stopped and hid behind a corner. In the moonlight she could be easily spotted – a pale ghost against the dark of the dimly lit city.

Once again it was in the nick of time. A dozen or so shadowy figures appeared to on the far side of the street. It was clear that most of them were undead. Missing joints and tendons had made the forsaken walk with a peculiar gait – hiding the awful strength they possessed. The larger figures were orcish rogues – their skill in stealth might not be the best but the brute force they possessed made short work of targets. Perhaps one or two were Sin'dorei, but she could not stay to allay her suspicions. They had found out that she had gone over to the mercenaries – and by extension the Alliance – and were out for her head.

Thankfully they had not laid an ambush for her at the workshop and her fingers deftly unlocked the complex mechanism of the door. It would take even the most skilled rogue or blacksmith a while to open them. At this time, this was as good and warm as possible Talaena thought as another cold draft of air brushed against her. If only she had escaped with her furred cloak. She sneezed as the lock yielded to her key and pushed against the door, fingers aching from the cold of the metal doors.

As she shut the door and locked it from the inside, she sighed. The adrenaline coursing through her body meant that her sleep had vanished. As quickly as she could, she put on two layers of clothing – one a woman's and then a man's to keep her warm. Next, she cocked one of the guns she had been making for the mercenaries and a box of bullets and sat down in a chair. The first fool who would charge headfirst into the workshop would be guaranteed a hole in their skull for their trouble. Talaena had made these weapons. She knew that they would penetrate a fully armoured tauren's skull. Let the footpads of the Banshee Queen come – Talaena had found her family and she would not let anything come between her and her kin.

Talaena had closed her eyes for a few spare moments, but when she opened them again, sunlight was streaming through windows. The gun was on her lap and her back hurt from the awkward posture she had fallen asleep in. For a moment, everything was peaceful, and Talaena wondered if she had fallen asleep in her workshop and had dreamed about last night's events. Then the scent of burning timber entered her nostrils. Her ears picked up the sound of a distant woman's scream. Almost instantly, she was back up and checking her surroundings with her gun. For an awful eternity, everything was still. Then the door started opening.

Quick as lightning, Talaena levelled her gun at the door. She would wait for one split second and then pull the trigger. The intruder would be dead by the time the door would swing open. She took a deep breath to steady herself. It had been a while since she had been stuck in a situation as tense as this and it felt comforting to know that she had the power to end lives on a whim. Erich had taken that away from her.

The door swung open and a familiar face appeared. Sven, one of the few outlanders who had settled into Alterac had opened the workshop door with his spare keys, and there was a look of worry on his face. He saw Talaena and almost immediately shouted something in his guttural tongue. A murmur rose up behind him.

Someone translated that into common and Talaena overheard some woman say that the Horde had taken over the workshop. It was all she could do not to roll her eyes. Most of these people saw her every day and worked under her. She pointed the gun upward and shouted back in common. "It is just me, humans. We have been working together for a while." Murmurs of relief and thanks came back from the assembled crowd outside. "What is going on?" She asked, curious as to what she had missed.

"The Horde is attacking Alterac!" Some man shouted from the back, voice on the verge of cracking in panic.

"The Alliance dogs are fleeing. This is the second war all over again!" A woman shouted angrily.

Talaena's gut dropped to the floor. The Alliance was too busy fighting the Horde in Kalimdor. Forsaken spies must have infiltrated the Alliance cordon around Alterac proper. She knew how easy it was after all. But attacking in force meant that key leadership targets had already been eliminated. She had been forced to throw in her lot with the Alliance after the outlander mercenaries had captured her. Talaena hadn't had much to complain about her incarceration, but now realised that she had been a fool. Hellscream's Horde didn't look kindly upon traitors – and a Blood Elven weaponsmith who worked for the people who had defeated Sylvanas would not be executed quickly.

While Talaena had put her guard down, Sven had quickly muscled his way through the crowd and inside the workshop. She heard the scrape of metal and wood, and of things tumbling in the darkness. She turned around and saw the large burly outlander carry no less than four heavy boxes of the weapons they had spent the past few weeks making. She turned around and looked at him squarely in the eyes

"What do you think you are doing?" She quizzed him – surprised that he was capable of doing things all by himself.

Sven for all his large and imposing body was perpetually intimidated by her. Under her stare he immediately looked down towards her toes. "Giving everybody guns."

"What on Azeroth gave you that idea? We can't fight the forsaken with a mob armed with guns!" She hissed him. Leave it to the fool to cook up an idea that would fall apart at the first sign of trouble.

Sven squinted his eyes and looked behind him towards the crowd. He stammered something in his native tongue and took a step back away from her even as he clutched the box. Talaena was so focused on him that she didn't notice another figure walk into the room.

"That would be me." Daisy looked at Talaena with an icy stare. From what she had overheard, Sven's new bride didn't like him spending time with her in the workshop instead of going home early.

"Do you know what the Forsaken army is capable of? There is no way we can fight them off if the Alliance army is retreating. We should be fleeing as soon as we can. Preferably before they do reach the city." Talaena knew that an adept assassin like herself could avoid Horde patrols and outriders with ease. A large number of untrained townsfolk – not so much.

"And how do you think we are going to do that without arms or armour? Even if we do, their scouts and outriders can catch up to us. Armed and equipped we can drive them off and continue moving towards Southshore. The Horde's navy can't reach it and we can take ships there to sail south!" Daisy smacked a balled fist into her hand. It was clear that the Gilnean was intent on carving a way through the Horde.

"None of us have any training or even the supplies needed for a longer march. We would starve to death in the foothills if we spend too much time scrounging for supplies." Talaena countered. A few dozen people escaping with weapons was possible. A straggling mass of refugees with little training would be harassed and slaughtered by outriders – if not bombed with the plague. Talaena still shuddered when she remembered Wrathgate.

"Don't worry your pretty elven head about it. We have already taken care of that. Either you help us gather the weapons and supplies we need, or we kill you for being a Horde agent." Daisy slipped out a knife of her cloak as she said that. Reflexively, Talaena turned her gun upon Daisy. She didn't mean to but there was a feral look in the Gilnean's eyes that she knew well. She had seen that desperation before when neighbours had turned upon each other after the destruction of the Sunwell. She always had an analytical mind, so she took stock of the situation – both immediate and the longer term implications

The Gilnean had the advantage. On her own, Talaena could take her down easily but there was a mob of scared and angry humans outside. The Horde was on the warpath and she was a blood elf. Her position was tenuous at best and she largely depended on the good graces of both the Alterac Crown and the mercenaries. The former was on the verge of being destroyed for the second time in a generation while the latter was on Kalimdor. The only reason she hadn't been killed after Rodrigo's assassination was because Erich Von Peiper seemed soft towards her aunt. Neither of those would know what would happen to Talaena. She would doubtless be lynched if she didn't acquiesce to their demands.

The longer term implications were perhaps even worse. Talaena was already too deep within the Alliance. The only way she would be able to survive was to stick together with the Gilneans. On her own she would be captured by either Horde or Alliance forces. She needed this mob – who would doubtless kill her if she waited too long – to make it back to her family. One day at a time – that was how she had survived after the fall of Quel'Thalas.

Her decision made, Talaena holstered her weapon and said, "There is ammunition in the back. Enough bullets and powder to equip a small army. Take as much as you can carry without slowing us down. There are a few carts laden with scrap metal outside. They should come in handy to transport the sick and children." Memories of her time in the Ghostlands began to resurface. She had survived an undead army attacking her home once before, and she had done that by sticking together with disparate survivors. Smarts and luck would get them through this.

"What about the rest?" Daisy asked turning around to look at her.

"I will destroy it so the Horde can't use them against us." Talaena answered.

The two of them watched as Sven began distributing the weapons to the crowd. Time was running out. She was about to be on the move once more.

* * *

Caledra enjoyed the smell of the ocean. It was as different as could be from the trees and shadows of Quel'thalas, but there was life aplenty all around her. Seagulls flew overhead, their sharp cries carried onwards by the wind. Large schools of fishes swam right under the surface of the water, visible under the waves. Occasionally Caledra could see towers of spray rise above the waves as whales surfaced to breathe. There was something mesmerising about the entire affair, magical in a way that was entirely different from the relatively sterile heartlands of Quel'thalas. It made her happy to be alive and she wanted to share that joy with someone.

Which is why she was angry with her choice of cabin mate. As an officer of the Alliance, Captain Dawnbreeze was allowed her own quarters on board the transport ships. Unfortunately for her, the battle had resulted in several discharged Alliance soldiers being sent off with the ship. Between choosing to sleep in the hold alongside hundreds of men and sharing a room with one, she had chosen the latter. Erich Von Peiper might be charming enough in his own blunt way during planning a battle and absolutely dashing in the midst of it, but here out on sea, he had turned into a lout. He seemed to get tongue tied at the most banal conversation Caledra tried to make with him. Erich would only loosen that tongue of his when sufficiently plied with drink, but the man didn't either realise or seem to care that he was far more entertaining company when sober.

Putting aside thoughts of Erich, she spent the next few hours walking about on deck, quietly observing the scattered groups of sailors going about their business. Most of the younger and spryer men would turn to ogle her walking by them. Caledra was used to this sort of human attention by now. She was taller than most of her admirers and could easily tackle some fool who felt he could force himself on her. Some of the officers saluted her raptly and she returned the gesture in kind. It felt awkward – especially after spending a few months alongside the mercenaries. Most of the Alliance officers turned their noses up at the admittedly terrible condition of the Tileans. As far as equipment went, the mercenaries were about as well equipped as the Darkshire militia. Their refusal to salute to nearly anyone that went past them and the fact that they were crammed into the holds of the ships in makeshift hammocks didn't help either.

Caledra watched the sun move westward and slowly sink over the horizon, turning the sea from blue to golden, enraptured by the enormity of the sight. A bell sounded dinner, and she turned around to walk back inside. Dinner seats were a surprisingly scarce commodity on this ship and she did not want to eat her food in the cabin. For all her speed, Caledra was disappointed when she got to the dinner hall and found that it had already been filled. The cook – an older woman from Stromgarde, gave her a sad smile and pointed to the tray. Caledra nodded solemnly and picked it up. It was looking to be another night of silently eating salted pork and bread.

She ate her meal quickly. Sailor food was not renowned for it's taste after all. She rinsed it down with a glass of pinot noir. For all their weather-beaten appearance, the Mercenaries excelled at taking unmarked stuff. Erich had been impressed at the resourcefulness of his men and offered to share this crate of wine – destined for dignitaries and Stormwind royalty. Caledra let the taste wash in her mouth for a while. As far as drinks went, this was very different from the ales and rums that the mercenaries were used to. Caledra found that she had drunk half the bottle before she forced herself to stop.

She corked the bottle and cleared the plates away. They could be returned tomorrow, and now, slightly tipsy, all Caledra wanted to do was fall asleep and drift off for a long night's sleep. A few more days of this, and she would be back in Stormwind and her snug home in the old city. She fell asleep dreaming of days long gone by in the lodges of Quel'Thalas.

Caledra's sleep was broken by the sound of the cabin door being opened. Almost unconsciously, her hands reached for the knife under her pillow, her instinct kicking in. She darted under the blanket to hide herself while keeping a small gap to observe the room. A pair of familiar silhouettes were illuminated by the light in the passageway before the door closed. She rolled her eyes and put the knife back. Erich had a bit too much to drink and was being carried back by Luigi. She closed her eyes and tried going back to sleep.

"She's asleep already, oh no, Erich what do I do!" Luigi said aloud.

"Whisper then Luigi You know how it works." Erich slurred. He tried moving towards his bed but tripped on his own feet. If not for the younger man holding him up, he would be lying on the floor.

"Lets get you to bed old man. It's way past your bedtime." The younger man gripped Erich all the tighter and gently walked him over to the bed. "You want me to tuck you in?" He asked flashing a smile that would have drawn heads in Silvermoon and Stormwind.

"I am not – not that drunk." Erich protested, trying to shove him away. It turned into a pat and he patted his ward's shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze. "It's all right. Nothing your old brother can't take care of." He snorted.

Luigi looked around uncomfortably. "Not _that_ old, you know Capitan."

Erich smiled sadly and shook his head. "Do you know how much gold I needed to finally pay my way out?"

Luigi shook his head. "Twenty five thousand crowns to buy the deed to my ancestral castle. A similar amount to make it worthy of my family name." Erich answered.

"How close did you get?" The younger man asked.

Erich shook his head sadly. "When I met you for the first time, I had five thousand crowns in the company purse, and fifty to mine own name."

Luigi clapped his hand to his mouth. "So when you brought my freedom, you were bluffing."

"The past year had been horrible. Valdoz's company had been split up after wintering in Bretonnia, and Eduardo had left with most of my men and the banners. The rest - "

"You saved lives there. Starving villagers forsaken by their dukes and you gave them enough to last a decade."

"We passed through there a year later lad. You remember what happened?"

"There was nothing there."

Erich nodded sadly. "You help people and it raises questions. A town with that much wealth so suddenly would doubtless be a nest of highwaymen. The crime of robbery merits death by hanging. I might as well have order their deaths by leaving them our gold. I still remember seeing the nooses on the oak trees as we were on the road to Quenelles."

"You should have told me. All those years and I thought you spent it on some silly business venture." Luigi's voice now held an edge to it.

"You were young then. It would have been embarrassing for me to admit that I lost both position and money to someone that I had taken under my wing. We all have to keep up appearances."

Caledra rolled her eyes and tried to fall asleep. It felt transgressive listening to the two men talking about their past. They may have fought together but most of the things they talked about made no sense to her. Which made it boring. She turned around and closed her eyes. The slight movement she made caught their attention.

"Bugger, she's awake." Erich swore.

"I thought we were being quiet." Luigi hissed.

"We drank half a cask between the two of us. Don't think that we can think anymore." Erich shook his head.

"Well. I have someone awaiting me in a cabin. I should get going." Luigi spoke with a softer tone.

"It is all fun and games until you catch a pox or become a father."

The younger man giggled and began to walk out of the room. As he was closing the door he turned around and said. "Have a good sleep Erich."

Erich chuckled as the door closed shut. He crawled into bed and declared. "I haven't slept well in years." Then he tittered nervously.

"Why not?" Caledra blurted out suddenly. She had been getting drowsy for a while and the question leapt to her tongue.

"I see their faces in my dreams. The men I have led to their deaths. They call out my name, asking for orders, as strong and firm as they were in life. I try to hail them, but my voice is gone." Caledra heard the sound of a soft sob. "It is never the killing that gets you in the end. All your glories and triumphs turn into a chain which strangles you ever so softly, until you wish you were the ones haunting someone else's dreams." He paused for a moment and said one last thing. "You are still young and strong. Enjoy these moments to their fill – for they will come back to haunt you in time."

The words were those of a person who had been utterly crushed by life. It reminded Caledra of those who had not been strong enough to resist the loss of the Sunwell. This sort of despair was terrifying to behold and she now understood the grim and determined look in his eyes and why he threw himself headfirst into the front of battle whenever he could. Erich Von Peiper was someone cared about the safety and happiness of those under him far more than his own. This style of command was familiar to her, and the rest of rangers of Silvermoon. The Windrunner Sisters had commanded in much the same manner - for better or worse. As Caledra drifted off into sleep she wondered if the human's fate would be similar to theirs. For reasons she couldn't fully explain - she hoped that it would not be so.

* * *

 ** _A/N: Sorry for the shorter chapter. IRL stuff gets in the way and I have to move for a month. I have a fever and can't respond to your comments right now._**


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